


Deva Victrix

by moonlighten



Series: Deva Victrix [1]
Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Human, Demisexual Character, M/M, Murder Mystery, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-04
Updated: 2017-05-10
Packaged: 2018-01-10 23:56:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 60
Words: 152,538
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1166153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moonlighten/pseuds/moonlighten
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alasdair Kirkland has been a guard in Deva, a large but sleepy town in a quiet backwater of the Empire, for ten years. In that time, he hasn't witnessed many unnatural deaths, but one day he finds a dead man in an alleyway with a very distinctive rose resting on his chest. That rose changes the entire course of Alasdair's life.</p><p> <br/><i>A fantasy AU murder mystery.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks yet again to nekoian, hitsu and meep for reading this in its infancy and giving me the confidence that it's shaping up okay so far.
> 
> nekoian's Brit bros and Ireland appear with kind permission from their author.
> 
> There will be many other characters and likely also relationships included in the fic as it progresses, and I will update the tags as they appear in the story.
> 
> The story's setting owes a debt to both the Discworld and Dragon Age in certain aspects, and Latin names for countries and towns are used because the world is also in part inspired by the Roman Empire (though mostly because I doubted my ability to come up with decent fantasy names).
> 
> __________________
> 
> Alasdair - moonlighten's Scotland  
> Arthur - moonlighten's England  
> Dylan - moonlighten's Wales  
> Michael - moonlighten's Northern Ireland  
> Caitlin - moonlighten's Ireland
> 
> Angus - nekoian's Scotland  
> Richard - nekoian's England  
> Llewellyn - nekoian's Wales  
> Oliver - nekoian's Northern Ireland  
> Niall - nekoian's Ireland
> 
> Gabriella/Healer Carriedo - moonlighten's femPortugal  
> Isabelle - nekoian's femPortugal
> 
> Luca/M. Jansen - Luxembourg  
> Luise/Captain Beilschmidt - femGermany  
> Amelia/Corporal Jones - femAmerica  
> Alaina/Mlle. Labelle - femFrance  
> Lady Alice Churchfield - femEngland  
> Lili - Liechtenstein  
> Emilia - femIceland
> 
>  
> 
> __________
> 
> Background pairings: England/femPortugal, Wales/Wales

It’s raining when they find the body, but then it usually is in Deva.  
  
What little soupy light has managed to break through the thick grey clouds overhead is almost completely blocked out by Angus’ massive shoulders as he leans over to take a closer look at the corpse. He nudges it with the toe of his boot, and tilts his head one way and then the other, eyes narrowed.  
  
“Hmph,” is his eventual assessment.  
  
Alasdair, crouched at the corpse’s side, has little more to add. He’s checked for both a pulse and wounds but found neither, and what he has found makes no sense.  
  
The dead man is probably no more than twenty-five, with regular, handsome features and a neatly trimmed beard. His shirt and trousers are simply cut and unadorned, but made from a finely woven fabric that drapes around his frame like silk, though it doesn’t shimmer in the same way.  
  
Deva is a large but nonetheless sleepy town in a quiet backwater of the empire, and despite his ten years as a guard, Alasdair hasn’t witnessed many unnatural deaths. Sometimes he might be called out to pick up the pieces after an argument that escalated into fatal violence, or to break up a tavern brawl just a little too late for one of the participants, but he’s never seen anything like the dead man before.  
  
If his mouth wasn’t twisted into a frozen sneer that reveals his straight white teeth, Alasdair could easily believe he was simply sleeping. The rest of his face is peaceful and his arms are crossed over his chest, his uncalloused hands loosely curled. His skin is still warm to the touch.  
  
“He hasn’t been dead long,” Alasdair says, getting to his feet again.  
  
“Not long at all,” Angus agrees. “Probably no more than an hour.”  
  
Alasdair thinks it unlikely that it’s even been a quarter of that. The front of the man’s shirt is only a little damp, and he’d expect it to be soaked through if he’d been lying out on his back in the rain for more than a few minutes. The narrow alleyway is sheltered at its sides by the overhanging eaves of the crooked buildings that border it, but the very centre, where the man’s body has fallen, is entirely exposed to the elements.  
  
“He might have been taken ill,” Alasdair says, though, in his heart, he doesn’t believe that. Judging by Angus’ sceptical expression, he doesn't either.  
  
The man looks as though he’d been the picture of good health before he’d died. His full black hair is glossy, and even though he’s slender, his bones are well-covered in flesh. He has none of the brittle, raw look Alasdair associates with sickness.  
  
In fact, he looks too healthy and too well-nourished to be an inhabitant of the Old Town district at all, and Alasdair has to wonder why such a noble-looking man with such fine clothes would have cause to be there in the first place. The alleyway is closed at both ends and foetid with the stink of rotting scraps tossed out behind the butcher’s shop. The cobblestones are slick with more than just rain.  
  
He and Angus usually avoid it for just that reason, but they’d needed someplace dry to light their pipes where they weren’t liable to be seen. Old Mr Lewis has taken to reporting them to the duty sergeant whenever he spots them taking a smoke break on their usual rounds, so a little light subterfuge has become a necessity.  
  
Despite its even worse stench, Alasdair wishes they’d decided to hide behind the tannery again instead.  
  
“We should inform the sergeant,” he says.  
  
Angus raises one thick, ginger eyebrow. “One of us should stay with the body, or else some fucking vulture or other round here will have picked him clean by the time we get back.”  
  
The man’s boots alone would probably cost a good six months’ of his own pay, so Alasdair doesn’t doubt that. He also doesn’t doubt that he will be the one fetching the guard sergeant. Angus isn’t, strictly speaking, his superior, but he is his senior by three years, something which he seems to believe gives him the authority to delegate the most unpleasant of their duties to Alasdair, regardless.  
  
As Angus has a good six inches of height on him, and his punches feel like being kicked by a mule, Alasdair finds it easier not to argue otherwise most of the time.  
  
“I’ll get the sergeant, then,” he says.

 

 

* * *

 

  
  
“Well, he’s definitely dead,” Gabriella announces once she’s finished examining the corpse.  
  
The sergeant’s dapper little salt and pepper moustache bristles. “That much is obvious, Miss Carriedo. I think the more pertinent question is _how_ he died, don’t you?”  
  
“Of course.” Gabriella gives the sergeant a tight, humourless smile that suggests she’s tempted to keep him waiting slightly longer for the answer he so desperately wants, his rudeness just compounding the ill-will he’d engendered by dragging her away mid-consultation with a patient despite her objections.  
  
Her dedication to her patients is unwavering, and even extends towards those who are put into her care too late for her skills to save. She has served the guards in investigations before, and given comfort to many people anxious to know exactly how their loved ones died, and never treated the victims with any less care and attention because they were beyond the hope of healing.  
  
“There’s no mark of disease that I can see,” she says eventually. “No wasting of the body or other indications of prolonged sickness. There are no grievous wounds, fatal or otherwise.” She wipes her hands clean on a rag tucked into the belt of her robe then meets the sergeant’s eyes levelly. “I think this man was poisoned.”  
  
“Poisoned?!”  
  
Gabriella nods. “I can’t tell you which poison without examining him more thoroughly, but his pupils are dilated, the inside of his nostrils burnt, and he appears to have vomited shortly before he died. All the signs certainly seem to point in that direction. And I found a small pinprick on his neck” – she rubs a spot on the side of her own neck, just above the hollow of her throat – “that suggests he might have been struck by a dart.”  
  
“A dart?!” The sergeant’s face grows so florid that Alasdair begins to fear that he might need Gabriella’s professional attentions himself soon enough.  
  
Doubtless his nerves are already feeling the strain, because he’s the one who’s going to have to tell their captain that they’ve found a young bloke who looks like he walked straight out of one of the great estates in Highgate to die in some alley filled with rotting offal in the dingiest part of town.  
  
There’s probably going to be uproar once word gets out. The dead man looks like the type who might have influential friends and family; ones who would make life very difficult for the guard captain if this murder isn’t solved quickly.  
  
“I found this, too, tucked in the folds of his shirt.” Gabriella holds out a flower with broad, crimson petals.  
  
The sergeant squints at it suspiciously. “Might that be what poisoned him?”  
  
“I shouldn’t think so,” Gabriella says, shaking her head. “As far as I can tell, it’s just a rose, albeit a variety I haven’t seen before.” She turns towards Alasdair. “It might be best to show it to your brother and make sure that’s all it is, though.”  
  
The sergeant scowls, clearly put out by Gabriella offering any advice beyond the medical, but as he probably knows next to nothing about plants himself, he eventually defers to her greater knowledge.  
  
“Hop to it, then, Corporal Kirkland,” he barks out, flicking his hand imperiously towards Alasdair. “Take that flower for your brother to examine. And you, Corporal Walsh.” He wheels on Angus. “I want you to question everyone you can find on this street and the next. Men like this can’t move through Old Town without attracting attention. Someone must have seen _something_.”

 

 

* * *

  
  
  
When Alasdair’s father died, he left very little in the way of an inheritance for his children.  
  
His collection of books was split between Dylan and Arthur, the battered tin whistle went to Michael – solely because no-one else really wanted it and he was too young at the time to register any complaints about the decision – and Caitlin won the honour of carrying their grandmother’s sword following one of the most humiliatingly short wrestling matches of Alasdair’s life, leaving him with the stewardship of his great-grandfather’s shield, which still bears the now forbidden colours of the last king of Northern Brittania.  
  
When their mother was taken from them, four years later, they found themselves reluctant owners of her apothecary shop.  
  
It’s situated in what is generally believed to be one of the better streets in Old Town, if only by virtue of it being slightly wider than most and upwind of the tannery’s dog shit stench. In their mother’s day, it had turned a tidy profit: she would dispense cures for boils and baldness out front, and, in the cool darkness of the cellar after hours, work hedge magic to ease the minds of the lovelorn or scared.  
  
Times have changed since then, and as Dylan is unable to supplement _his_ income by weaving spells, he barely manages to break even most months. Alasdair and Arthur hand him over a good portion of their own meagre wages, and Caitlin sends money whenever she can, but still they haven’t been able to hold back the shop’s slow slide into disrepair.  
  
As though ashamed of its ragged appearance, the whole building droops dejectedly now, from the sagging and poorly patched roof to the crooked lintel over the front door which causes it to stick whenever the wood swells with rain.  
  
Even the bell over that door has grown tarnished and misshapen with age, and makes a muffled thump rather than ringing when Alasdair enters the shop.  
  
It’s still loud enough to attract Michael’s attention away from the large book he has spread open on the pitted table that serves as a counter, and he looks up eagerly at the sound. His hopeful expression is quick to fade, however.  
  
“Oh, it’s just you,” he says, scowling. “Thought it might be a customer.”  
  
“Slow day?” Alasdair asks.  
  
“Mrs Platt came in first thing feeling a bit ‘off’. She spent the best part of an hour having a good sniff at every bottle Dylan brought out to recommend her, and that seemed to do her the world of good because she fucked off after that without buying anything,” Michael says sourly. “Oh, and Mr Elliott came at lunchtime to buy the usual tincture for his piles. That was it until you arrived.”  
  
A _typical_ day, in other words.  
  
For the first few years after Dylan reopened the shop, trade continued as briskly as it had when their mother ran it, but as more and more of their old neighbours either died or simply moved away, taking their loyalty to Mrs Kirkland’s memory along with them, it gradually died down to its current sluggish trickle.  
  
Alasdair’s own familial loyalty makes him reluctant to admit it, but he suspects that Dylan himself has driven most of his custom away. His brother’s herblore is both abundant and impressive, given that it is largely self-taught, but his youthful countenance and muddled way of speaking inspire no confidence in the extent of his knowledge.  
  
Those potential customers who were not made so uneasy by the apothecary’s prattling digressions that they mistrusted his judgement regarding their treatment were likely dissuaded from visiting again by Michael, whose surly presence at the front of the shop and obvious distaste for his role of apprentice made even the simplest of transactions into something of a trial.  
  
It was no wonder, really, that most newcomers to Old Town eventually came to frequent Lukas Bondevik’s apothecary instead. Mr Bondevik might not greet them with as warm a welcome as Dylan, nor serve them with as much patience and diligent attention to their needs, but his own shop – only three doors down from Dylan’s – is neat, well-maintained, and more regularly de-cobwebbed than Michael seems to have the energy for, and he speaks with such authority that he could likely sell nothing but plain water as a remedy and still persuade anyone who listened to him that it could cure them of any ailment.  
  
“Still, it’s nearly closing time,” Alasdair says, stepping forward to give his little brother’s hair a quick ruffle.  
  
Michael flinches away from him, his scowl deepening.  
  
“And then I’ll have to tidy the shop,” he says, his words fading into a despondent sigh that suggests that the task is just too huge and terrible to contemplate after a strenuous day of hanging around doing pretty much fuck all except for sitting on his arse and reading, as far as Alasdair can tell.  
  
He finds it hard to summon up any sympathy for his brother.  
  
“That’ll take you all of five minutes, no doubt,” Alasdair says. “I’ve seen your idea of tidying, Mikey. All you do is straighten up the display bottles and wave a wet cloth in the general direction of the counter. It’s no bloody wonder that you can barely see through any of the windows here.” That fact, which has been true for the past year at least, seems untenable all of a sudden. “You should go out and wash them before dinner.”  
  
“But they’re huge,” Michael says, looking horrified at the suggestion.  
  
“I don’t sodding care,” Alasdair snaps back. “Gods, Dylan fucking spoils you. Angus’ lad Oliver is your age and he spends all day and half the night on his feet, lugging around barrels and the like at Richard’s place, and he never complains. Hell, he never stops bloody _smiling_ , come to that. Maybe you and him should swap places for a while; might help you realise how easy you have it.”  
  
Michael opens his mouth as if to protest, but swiftly snaps it shut again, swallowing hard. “I’ll go and fill a bucket,” he says meekly before scuttling off with greater haste and purpose than Alasdair has seen him display in years.  
  
Youngest brother satisfactorily dealt with, Alasdair feels free to return to pursuing his original objective with a clear conscience. To that end, he makes his way to the back of the shop, where Dylan’s laboratory is situated.  
  
It was never a large room, but it’s been made even smaller by the tools of his brother’s trade. A furnace takes up the greatest part, and the rest is almost completely filled by distillatory apparatus, scales, glass vessels of various dimensions, and a network of thin copper pipes twisted into a convoluted tangle.  
  
There’s barely enough space left for Dylan’s workbench, never mind Dylan himself. He has to perch on a high, narrow stool to use it, his broad arse over-spilling the seat either side, and hunch so far forward to reach his tools that his back is usually bent almost double.  
  
He always finishes work with a sore spine and shoulders, and more often than not, with some part of him burnt, too. There are only two small windows in the lab, set high up in the far wall, which are sufficient to keep the room free from noxious fumes but not to let in anything but the faintest slivers of light. Accordingly, Dylan has to keep an oil lamp lit on his bench, even during the daytime, though he seems to forget that it’s there whenever he’s caught up in his work, and his arms, fingers, and occasionally his hair, end up paying the price.  
  
He’s leant far too close to the spluttering flame now, his elbow almost banging against the already cracked glass cover every time he grinds down with his pestle. His expression of intense concentration – which pinches some resemblance of definition into his otherwise plain, soft features – suggests that he won’t notice his proximity to the lamp until either his skin begins sizzling or else he knocks it to the floor yet again.  
  
Thankfully, he startles away rather than towards it when Alasdair noisily clears his throat to announce his presence, and then blinks across at him slowly, clearly puzzled, his eyes turned impossibly large by the thick lenses of his protective goggles.  
  
“What are you doing home so early?” he asks. “I thought your shift didn’t finish till six.”  
  
“Strictly speaking, I’m still on the clock,” Alasdair says. “I need you to take a look at something for me.”  
  
He holds the flower out to his brother, who takes it from him and then pushes his goggles up to rest on the top of his head. Their heavy metal frames have scored dark pink semicircles across the breadth of his pale face, and as he examines the flower, the rest of his rounded cheeks darken to match.  
  
“Are you planning on giving this to someone special?” he says eventually, sounding faintly embarrassed. “I mean, it’s beautiful … Or it was beautiful, I suppose, before you crushed all the petals.” He lifts the flower to his nose and inhales deeply. “And it’s lost almost all of its scent.”  
  
“I wouldn’t put it that close to my face if I was you. We found it in some dead bloke’s shirt,” Alasdair says, his own embarrassment making him feel a little spiteful. He can’t imagine what might have given Dylan cause to think he might have some beau he was trying to impress, never mind that he would ever ask his brother to appraise his efforts if that situation were ever to arise.  
  
Dylan drops the flower with gratifying speed. “For fuck’s sake, why didn’t you tell me that first, Aly,” he says, scrubbing his hand vigorously against the sleeve of his robe. “I bet you don’t even have the first clue what he died of, do you?”  
  
“No,” Alasdair admits, “but I doubt you’re in any danger of catching anything, anyway. Gabs thinks he was poisoned.”  
  
“Poisoned?” Dylan echoes, his eyebrows arching high. “You don’t think this flower has anything to do with that, surely? It’s only a rose. They’re mildly astringent, at best, not dangerous.”  
  
Alasdair shakes his head. “I know that. It just seems like it might be some rare variety or something. I’ve never seen one like it before.”  
  
“Neither have I.” Dylan shrugs. “All I can tell you is that it’s definitely not a cabbage rose or a briar rose, and Gabs doubtless knew that herself. You’d be better off showing it to Arthur.”  
  
Alasdair comes to the realisation that Gabriella had been talking about Arthur in tandem with Dylan’s words. In retrospect, it should have been obvious. His thoughts might inevitably turn towards Dylan upon an unqualified mention of ‘his brother’ but Gabriella’s certainly don’t.  
  
“Aye, but I thought I’d give you a chance first before I dragged myself all the way off to the palace,” he says hurriedly. “I’ll go and see Wart tomorrow.”  
  
 

 

* * *

  
  
  
As it does most nights, their dinner consists of bread and meat stew. What kind of meat is impossible to deduce from either taste or texture, though Alasdair considers it better for his peace of mind not to speculate, in any case.  
  
Ludwig is kind enough to sell Dylan bags of scraps from his butcher’s shop for only a couple of coppers before he closes up for the day, and if one of Isabelle’s loaves happens to rise unevenly, or perhaps singes a little in the baking, she will set it aside to trade in exchange for some sprigs of mint from Dylan’s small herb garden.  
  
The largest component of the stew remains a thin, brown broth, in which the odd gristly lump, or chunk of carrot or potato might bob forlornly into occasional view.  
  
It’s still the best thing Alasdair’s eaten all day. He’s entitled to take one of his meals at the guardhouse, and though today it was lunch, it doesn’t make any difference which one he chooses as they only ever offer some sort of grey slop of unknown provenance that tastes like stables smell and has the consistency of phlegm.  
  
Dylan is a dab hand with seasoning, at least.  
  
Michael practically inhales his own portion – his already hearty appetite obviously swelled to monstrous proportions by the unaccustomed half hour of physical labour Alasdair had assigned him earlier – then leans back in his chair and launches into his usual round of questions about Alasdair’s shift at work.  
  
“Did you catch any thieves?” he asks, his thin face alight with an expression of eagerness he rarely displays at any other time.  
  
“No,” Alasdair says without bothering to look up from his bowl.  
  
“Murderers?”  
  
“No.”  
  
“Did you have to chase anyone across the rooftops?”  
  
Alasdair has never done anything of the sort in his life. He blames the lurid crime books Michael's tastes run to for giving him outlandish ideas about what constitutes the normal work of a guard which is, in reality, usually little more than walking up and down the same handful of streets for hours on end, trying to look threatening enough that their presence acts as sufficient deterrent against crimes happening in the first place.  
  
“No.”  
  
“Through the sewers?”  
  
“No.”  
  
“Did you find any dead bodies?” Michael says finally, drawing out each word with clear relish.  
  
Alasdair has no doubt that he would have felt the same kind of delighted horror at the possibility when he was fifteen himself, but hearing it so clearly in his little brother’s voice still makes him feel slightly sick all the same. His mind turns inexorably towards the poor bloke in the alley, and thence to wondering if he might have brothers, or parents, or a spouse, or, gods, even children waiting for him to join them for dinner somewhere in town.  
  
Michael takes his lengthy pause as confirmation, and practically beams in excitement. “Were they stabbed?”  
  
“Michael,” Dylan says sharply, though his anxious gaze is directed towards Alasdair rather than their brother. “This really isn’t a suitable topic for the table. Aly and I are trying to eat.”  
  
“But,” Michael begins to whine, but Dylan cuts him off with: “If you can’t think of anything else to talk about, then you can either sit there and say nothing or go and make a start on cleaning my alembic now. The choice is yours.”  
  
Dylan seldom speaks Michael with any firmness, and though Michael does look mildly betrayed, he keeps his silence, nevertheless; likely, Alasdair suspects, because the very rarity of such treatment makes it seem all the more imperative to obey. Dylan’s temper only thins in the most trying of circumstances.  
  
Alasdair wouldn’t consider his position in any way dire enough yet that he’s in need of his brother’s misguided attempts at protection, but he feels a little grateful for Dylan’s overreaction all the same.  
  
The dead man’s probably going to fill up so much of his time in the coming days that a last night as free of any further thoughts of him as he can manage is a very welcome prospect.

 

 

* * *

  
  
  
Alasdair’s reprieve doesn’t even last an hour.      
  
Whilst Michael is in the laboratory sullenly dealing with the alembic, and Dylan and Alasdair are attempting to scrub the last stubborn remnants of stew from the depths of the cooking pot, Gabriella lets herself in the shop’s back door, stepping straight into the kitchen unannounced in the same way she has ever since they were all children together.  
  
Even though it stopped raining around the time the sun sank below the horizon, her long, dark hair is damp, as are the shoulders of her blue woolen dress. It’s such a surprise to see her wearing something other than her healer’s robes that it apparently renders Dylan incapable of his typical politeness, as his first reaction upon catching sight of her is to ask her about the change instead of offering her some of the tea that’s just finished brewing.  
  
“My last patient was a croupy baby,” Gabriella says, smiling ruefully. “It’s amazing how much vomit such a small person can produce. My robes were practically soaked through.”  
  
“But being a healer’s a calling, right, Gabs?” Alasdair chuckles. “You always say so. Just remember it’s all for a higher purpose and all that.”  
  
“Sometimes I wish I’d been called to work on a vineyard in Hispania like Antonio was,” Gabriella mutters under her breath.  
  
Belatedly remembering his manners, Dylan hustles her into taking a seat at the table, hands her a cup of tea, and then asks her how she’d spent the non-sick-covered parts of her day.  
  
“I went to take a closer look at that poor young man you and Angus found,” Gabriella says, tilting her head towards Alasdair as she looks up at him. “They’ve taken his body to the Paupers' Temple, you know. He’ll likely end up being buried there if someone doesn’t come to collect him soon.”  
  
“Did you learn anything else?” Alasdair asks.  
  
Gabriella shakes her head. “I didn’t have much of a chance to examine him at all. Apparently, your captain doesn’t trust me to do my job, because he sent along that surgeon from Highgate to do his own investigation. The one who was trained in Londinium, so of course he knows medicine better than anyone.” A grimace of distaste briefly twists her lips. She’s butted heads more than once with the surgeon in question, who seems to believe that leeches are the be all and end all of any treatment that doesn’t involve hacking off a body part. “I’d only been there about five minutes and he just _shooed_ me away as though I was a dog or something. I felt tempted to bite him like one, that’s for sure.”  
  
“He’s a complete twat,” says Dylan, whose own low opinion of the surgeon was cemented during his short visit to their shop, wherein he glanced at exactly one of Dylan’s carefully prepared elixirs before pronouncing his entire stock unfit for use.  
  
“He certainly is,” Gabriella agrees happily. She then produces a small vial from her satchel which she passes to Dylan. “I did manage to draw a sample of blood before the ‘distinguished Dr Morgan’ swooped in. I thought you should take a look at it, Dyl, and see if you’re able to figure out what poison was used.”  
  
“I can try,” Dylan says, though he already sounds slightly dubious about his chances at success. “I know a few tests that might work.”  
  
“I think we’ve got about as far with this as we can today,” Gabriella says to Alasdair, and then, widening her gaze to encompass Dylan as well, adds, “I don’t know about the two of you, but between surgeons and babies, I could definitely do with a pint or three about now. How does the Lost Antler strike you?”

 

 

* * *

 

  
  
  
The Lost Antler might not sell the cheapest beer in Old Town, or even the best, but it does have the distinction of being the inn closest to the apothecary shop, so Dylan and Alasdair still end up visiting it more than any other.  
  
It was probably quite a grand place once, a century or so back, but like so many of the surrounding buildings, time hasn’t been kind to it. Decades of pipe smoke have given the windows a permanent yellow tinge, and the plaster is crumbling away in spots both inside and out, but Richard and Oliver’s tireless efforts keep the age-darkened wood well-polished and the hearth in the taproom constantly fed.  
  
The floorboards by the front door might be swept clean, but they’re loose and creak alarmingly when Gabriella, Dylan and Alasdair enter the inn. Alasdair has often thought this particular oversight in the building’s upkeep is actually deliberate and serves much the same purpose as the dilapidated bell in the apothecary. Richard looks up from behind the bar at the sound as he always does, gives them a tight nod, and then gets back to polishing glasses.

As it’s still relatively early, there are only a few scattered knots of drinkers dotted about, mostly comprised of those patrons who are a daily fixture from the moment the Lost Antler opens until Richard kicks them out last thing before he bars the door.  
  
 “I can’t see Llewellyn,” Dylan says, his brow slowly knotting as his gaze roams between the small groups.  
  
Alasdair can’t bring himself to share his brother’s obvious disappointment. The bard seems like a decent enough sort, judging by the few words Alasdair has been able to coax out of him over the years, but he can’t say the same for his music.  
  
Back before the invention of the printing press, Alasdair supposes that bards served a useful enough function in sharing news and stories that people excused the way their ballads droned on and interminably on with no discernable chorus for everyone to join in with as any respectable song should. Now, there’s no justification for it, and doubtless Llewellyn only earns the coppers he does when he passes around his cap at the end of the night because some of his captive audience feel a sense of obligation to keep him from starving so that the obsolete tradition can limp on for a few more years past what should have been its natural death.  
  
No-one appears to like his performances a great deal save perhaps Richard, who invites him back time and again, and Dylan, who watches every one he can with a sort of breathless wonder. Alasdair has often thought that it’s not so much the music itself that enraptures his brother, but getting caught up in imagining that, perhaps in another life, he might have been the one in the bard’s place. Dylan’s always loved to sing, and though untrained, his voice has a richness and clarity that makes it worth listening to, but the tips of his fingers are so scarred by his work that they’re likely too clumsy and numb  or him ever to be able to learn how to play the harp or flute with any skill, no matter how much he might wish it.  
  
“He might have set up in the snug,” Dylan adds, drifting away before Alasdair has chance to ask him for a coin to pay for his drink.  
  
“I guess I’m stumping up for his ale then,” Alasdair grumbles, reaching reluctantly for his purse.  
  
Gabriella catches hold of his wrist. “I’ll get this round,” she says, giving her head a quick shake. “You go and find us a table.”  
  
The suggestion might be born of pity, because Gabriella is surely aware that Alasdair’s purse contains more dust than coins just like it normally does, but they’ve known each other long and well enough that they can both pretend that it’s nothing more than generosity and Alasdair can allow himself to believe in the lie without the usual bruising of his pride.  
  
He nods acceptance, and after Gabriella has left for the bar, heads straight for the table Angus habitually occupies, tucked out of sight from the main part of the taproom by a thick wooden pillar and dented suit of plate armour that Richard had inherited from the inn’s previous owners.  
  
Sure enough, Angus is already seated there with the pint he will nurse until his boy finishes work and they can walk back together to the small house they rent on the other side of Old Town.  
  
He glances towards Alasdair as he nears, and asks, in lieu of a greeting, “You on your own?”  
  
“Naw, my brother and Gabs are here, too. Mikey might be over later, but I doubt it. He’s on cleaning duty to make up for being a lazy little shit, and given the speed he works, he likely won’t be finished before midnight.”  
  
Angus’ lips curve into a small smile that’s purely amusement and betrays no hint of shared understanding. Alasdair doubts he ever has to deal with the same sort of problem when it comes to Oliver, who might as well be a creature comprised of pure energy in comparison to Michael.  
  
“I’d like a word with you before they join us,” Angus says, inclining his head towards the free seat beside him.  
  
“Join _us_?" Alasdair echoes disbelievingly before he can stop himself. He’d approached Angus expecting nothing more than the polite mutual acknowledgment of each other’s existence they typically exchange when they meet outside work hours, because Angus isn’t particularly bothered for company as a rule.  
  
The implicit offer of adding his presence to their party is unprecedented enough that Alasdair finds himself sitting down before Angus even has chance to answer, so he doesn’t have time to change his mind about making it.  
  
Angus frowns slightly. “Not a single person I talked to admitted to seeing that bloke this afternoon before he died,” he says in an undertone. “Funny, that, isn’t it?”  
  
“Hilarious,” Alasdair agrees, shifting uncomfortably. Part of him wants to tell Angus that he doesn’t want to think about the dead man for at least what remains of the day, but he supposes that the rest of him must unknowingly yearn to know more anyway, as he had sought his partner out, after all. He hadn’t needed to; Angus wouldn’t have held it against him if he didn’t stop by. “Man like that, you’d have thought that the clinking of his purse would have turned the odd head, if nothing else.”  
  
Angus runs a finger along the jagged scar that seams the right side of his forehead, the way he always does when he’s unsettled. And as he always does when he witnesses the gesture, Alasdair idly wonders what might have caused that scar, along with all of the others that pepper Angus’ arms and hands. Taken together with the crooked nose that implies a poorly set break, they tell a far different story about Angus’ life before he joined the guards than the bare bones one he had given Alasdair, which contained nothing of any note beyond Oliver’s birth when he was little more than a boy himself.  
  
“You’d have thought so, but then we didn’t find a purse on him, did we?” Angus says eventually, sounding cautious. “Now, maybe he didn’t carry one – I’ve heard tell that fine men sometimes don’t – but perhaps –”  
  
“Perhaps someone found him before us and took it,” Alasdair finishes with a groan. He can’t believe he didn’t make the connection before himself; it seems so obvious in retrospect. “Good thinking, Angus. So we should be looking out for someone who’s suddenly a bit more flush than usual?”  
  
“Aye, and I mentioned as much to the sergeant, too, so he can tell the lads doing morning patrol to do the same.” Angus’ smile this time is broader, and he looks pleased that Alasdair agrees with his take on the situation. Doubtless the sergeant had argued against it, if only out of sheer bloody-mindedness. “What did your brother make of the flower?”  
  
“No more than Gabs did, but I thought I’d take it over to the palace to show Arthur, just in case he can shed some light on it,” Alasdair says, safe in the knowledge that Angus, who’s never taken the slightest interest in Arthur’s profession, won’t pick up on the arse-backwards way round of doing things he’d accidentally engaged in. “Gabs also managed to grab us a bit of the bloke’s blood when she went to look at him up at the Paupers'. Dyl might be able to work out what poisoned him from that.”  
  
“Neat trick,” Angus says with genuine feeling, obviously impressed.  
  
If Dylan was there, he’d no doubt be spluttering in incoherent rage to hear his years of study and careful techniques classified as such and Alasdair would feel bound to correct Angus, but as he isn’t, Alasdair just nods in agreement.  
  
Angus takes a sip of his beer, swipes his tongue across his top lip to catch the foam, and then leans closer to Alasdair. “After we moved the body, I found one of the petals from that flower on the ground.” The drink clearly didn’t help to wet his throat, because his voice grows hoarse and he has to give a sharp cough before continuing. “I probably should have given it to you to go along with the rest, but I didn’t. I just slipped it into my pocket.”  
  
He seems to feel guilty enough over that decision that he has difficulty meeting Alasdair’s eyes.  
  
“I don’t think one petal would have made any difference,” Alasdair reassures him. “It still looks like a rose with the ones it has, Dyl just doesn’t know all that much about them. Besides, it might prove useful; you can show it around, and see if it means anything to anyone you know.”  
  
Angus gives up on any pretense at making eye contact and stares down into his pint instead, a faint flush colouring his freckled cheeks. “I’ve already shown it to my brother,” he mutters.

From what Alasdair has been able to glean from Angus’ patchy life stories, he doesn’t have any blood relations apart from his son, but he there are a few lads he calls brother because they grew up together in the orphanage that took Angus in after his parents died. Richard and Llewellyn are the only two Alasdair is familiar with, and he can’t imagine either of the them knowing any more about roses than Dylan.  
  
“Which one?” he asks, hoping that Angus might in fact claim kinship with someone whose botanical genius might simply have gone hitherto unmentioned due to lack of interest on his part. Not only would it expedite matters, but it would free Alasdair from the obligation of visiting Arthur, thus brightening his life on two fronts in the process.  
  
“You probably don’t remember him,” Angus says. “He travels a lot; doesn’t come home to Deva all that often. He didn’t recognise the petal, but he said he’d keep his ear to the ground, listening for mention of roses, poison, and the like. There’s a good chance he might hear something, too, because knows a lot of people around here, both high and low.”  
  
Angus’ complexion darkens yet further with the last word, suggesting that ‘low’ could quite easily be replaced by ‘criminal’. Normally, Alasdair would press him for more details, but he ignores his guard instincts for once and allows the moment to pass without comment. As long as Angus’ brother doesn’t get himself drawn into anything illegal by his ‘friends’ whilst he’s home, Alasdair can look the other way. At the end of the day, there’s no crime in keeping bad company.  
  
And they would probably benefit with some inside information from the town’s seedier underbelly, especially whilst the dead man’s purse is still unaccounted for.

 


	2. Chapter 2

Alasdair’s father had once told him that there’d been a castle on the hill since the great king Llewellyn the Red ruled, many centuries ago.  
  
That squat stone tower stood sentinel over the small settlement that sprang up in its shadow, and then later Old Town, back when it was the only town there was and it bore a name in the old tongue that Alasdair cannot pronounce.  
  
A little over a hundred years ago, when the Empire swept fire through their country, it was razed to the ground. Soon after, they built a palace to replace it in the continental style, with fine marble facings and elegant fluted pillars, so that the very first Imperial Governor of Northern Britannia could live in an opulence that befitted his station and perhaps allowed him to imagine to the best of his abilities that he’d never had to leave Roma.  
  
The second Imperial Governor of Northern Britannia had preferred to make Eboracum’s far grander palace her seat of power, as had every governor who followed her save the most recent, and Deva’s own palace had been left to fall into genteel decay.  
  
Eight months ago, the newest governor had ordered the great oak doors unchained for the first time in ninety years, and then created employment for half of Deva, it seems, in his efforts to restore the building and grounds to some semblance of their former glory.  
  
Alasdair’s brother, Arthur, had been taken on as part of the large team whose task was to make the place habitable in anticipation of the governor’s arrival two months later, and before the more skilled task of proper renovation could begin. He had done such a good job in the gardens then that he had been retained as one of the full-time staff. He only returns home on his one free afternoon of the week, ostensibly granted so that he can attend the religious services of whatever faith he follows, but in reality spent taking his dinner at the apothecary and making awkward advances towards the idea of entering into courtship with Gabriella.  
  
Alasdair has never been to see Arthur at his place of work, as servants are not permitted to accept personal guests, and he hasn’t had official reason before today. As his shift does not start for hours yet, he can’t really claim he’s visiting officially now, and the sight of him approaching, wearing his civilian clothes, serves to make the guards at the palace’s front gate immediately suspicious.  
  
They move to bar it, hands resting lightly on the butts of the flintlock pistols holstered at their hips, and both eye him with identical expressions of disdain.  
  
“What is your business here?” the younger one asks. His voice bears the faint traces of an accent that Alasdair can’t quite place, though his first guess would be that it was Gallian, and thus the guard had accompanied their new governor from his homeland.  
  
“I’m Corporal Alasdair Kirkland of the Deva Town Guard,” Alasdair says, canting his head at a deferential angle as he holds out his badge. “I need to talk to one of the under-gardeners who works here.”  
  
The guard snatches the palm-sized copper shield, and then glances at it briefly. “I hear there are metalsmiths in Old Town who make guard badges to order for anyone with enough coin.” He sneers, tossing the badge back towards Alasdair. “The work of an afternoon, they say.”  
  
The other guard nods. “And where’s your armour, ‘ _Corporal_ ’? Your sword?”  
  
As Alasdair isn’t on duty, he hadn’t been able to sign either his breastplate or weapon out from the guardhouse, but waiting until ten o’clock, when his patrol was actually due to start, had been out of the question. No outsider is permitted to enter the palace grounds after dark without a written invitation from the governor himself.  
  
"I haven’t—"  
  
“Kirkland! What in all the many hells are you doing here?”  
  
Alasdair smiles at the sound of the loud, cheerful, and, above all, familiar voice ringing out from the road behind him, then turns to greet his old sergeant, Jenkins, when he claps him heartily on the back in greeting.  
  
He hasn’t seen the old man since he stepped down from his post at the beginning of the year, but he looks much the same as he did then. He’s still red-cheeked and full of face, though he does seem to have lost some of the excess bulk from the rest of his frame, or else the tight cut of his smart blue uniform conceals some light corsetry that’s keeping the swell of his stomach in check.  
  
_Smart blue uniform._  
  
Alasdair glances quickly back towards the guards at the gates and catches them mid-salute. His smile broadens.  
  
“I was just in the area and thought I might check in on how my little brother Arthur’s doing,” he says. “He works in the gardens, sir.”  
  
“He does?” Jenkins looks delighted. He always did take a keen interest in the fortunes of his subordinates’ families. “Well, I think it’s very commendable that you want to see for yourself how he’s faring. Very commendable indeed.” He clasps firm hold of one of Alasdair’s shoulders . “I think all of the gardeners are working on the grotto today, and it just so happens that I’ll be passing it on my way to the barracks. I can show you how to get there myself if you care to accompany me.”  
  
“But, Captain,” the younger guard says plaintively.  
  
“’But, Captain,’ nothing, Corporal Dubois,” Jenkins barks. “This man here” – the grip on Alasdair’s shoulder tightens fractionally – “is one of the finest guards I have ever had the pleasure of working with. I can personally vouch for his honour, and I assure you that he can be trusted to keep his hands off his lordship’s silver and whatnot.”

 

 

* * *

  
  
  
Alasdair has very seldom had cause or the means to stray far beyond Deva, but shortly after their paternal grandfather died, his father took him and Caitlin to see a lake five miles away where he used to go fishing as a boy.  
  
It remains both the furthest Alasdair has ever been from his home to date and one of his fondest memories, besides. They had done nothing that day but stretch their legs out further than they ever could walking down Old Town’s crowded streets, and fill their lungs with sweet air that didn’t stink of shit, piss, and thousands of other bodies pressed far too closely together.  
  
There were no sounds but their own footsteps and the odd cry of a bird, and no walls constricting their view, only the bright blue sky above and the soft rolling hills below. Alasdair has never felt as free as he did that day on any that followed afterwards.  
  
Whilst their father looked out across the lake’s dark, placid waters, remembering his own da, Caitlin and Alasdair were left free to explore. They found a tiny cave scoured into the rocks by some long-dry waterfall on the far bank, and made childish plans to make their home there, far away from dull calligraphy lessons, cleaning duties, and their mother’s insistence on regular baths.  
  
That cave, unimpressive though it might have been, had seemed beautiful to Alasdair’s eyes. The palace’s grotto is, on the other hand, a fucking monstrosity.  
  
It clearly has pretensions towards passing itself off as an ancient feature of the landscape, but it’s obvious upon even the most cursory of inspections that each and every rock that makes up its sides and roof have been laid down with the utmost care. That it’s ever so slightly too regular, ever so slightly _wrong_ , makes it all the uglier when compared to the natural splendour that it’s designed to ape.  
  
Just beyond the artificial cave’s shallow entrance, there stands a painted marble statue of the sort that’s seemingly beloved in the Empire’s capital: empty eyed, blank faced, and naked save for a fold of cloth draped modestly in front of its nethers.  
  
Arthur is easy to spot amongst the crowd of other gardeners planting broad-leaved plants – Alasdair's fairly certain they're weeds, given that he’s frequently seen Dylan cursing their constant return to his herb garden before he yanks them out – at carefully spaced intervals around the grotto’s base, as the weak autumn sunlight picks out all of the golden strands in his fair hair, making it shine brightly.  
  
His head snaps up the instant Alasdair calls out his name, and he spares a moment to look completely and utterly mortified before throwing down his trowel and hurrying over.  
  
“What the fuck are you doing here?” he spits out as he draws near.  
  
“He was _slightly_ more polite about it, but Captain Jenkins asked me the same thing, you know,” Alasdair says, stepping back out of arms’ reach, as Arthur looks as though he is considering whether or not to punch him.  
  
“I’m not surprised.” Arthur’s right hand forms a fist, but he stops short of actually swinging it. The violent twitch of his shoulders suggests it was decision made only at the very last minute. “What business could you possibly have here?”  
  
“Guard business,” Alasdair says, to what appears to be mild incredulity on Arthur’s part, judging by the swift flare of his nostrils. “I need you to give me your professional opinion on something.”  
  
Alasdair takes the rose from his pocket and tries to pass it to his brother. Arthur gives his head a quick shake, and then holds up his hands, palms outward, in explanation. They’re filthy, coated in damp, clinging soil from the pads of his fingers all the way down to the creases in his wrists.  
  
“I don’t want to damage it any more than you already have,” he says. “Honestly, Alasdair, couldn’t you find anywhere more sensible to keep it than  your trousers?”  
  
Normally, Alasdair would remonstrate even though his brother is irritatingly on point, because the particular smug tone of voice he’s using practically demands it, but then normally he doesn’t much care if he provokes Arthur into an argument just for the sake of taking him down a peg of two.  
  
As such arguments often result in Arthur refusing to speak to him for weeks on end, save through Dylan as an intermediary, that course of action doesn’t seem especially prudent.  
  
So, he just shrugs, and chooses to ignore how self-satisfied it causes Arthur to look.  
  
After a pause that is prolonged far longer than necessary, Alasdair presumes, in order that he can properly bask in his feelings of righteousness, Arthur says, “Just let me clean off a little.”  
  
His hands hover uncertainly over the front of his tunic at first, obviously torn over whether or not he should wipe them there. Alasdair can’t blame him, as the tunic is a very elegant one; well cut and made from a tight woven fabric that is the same shade of blue as the palace guards’ uniforms. It’s the King of Gallia’s blue, and his son’s crest – that Alasdair had thought was meant to be a bunch of feathers on first sight, but which Arthur subsequently informed him was in fact a stylised flower of some kind – is woven in gold thread on the breast.  
  
Completely impractical for dirty work like gardening, in Alasdair’s opinion, and, it appears, Arthur’s too, as he eventually scrubs his palms against his rough homespun trousers instead.  
  
“We don’t grow anything like this in the gardens,” Arthur says after accepting the rose from Alasdair and studying it for a while, twirling it back and forth between his thumb and forefinger so that he can inspect it from every angle. “It’s definitely not native, but I can’t tell you any more than that, I’m afraid.”  
  
“I learnt that much from Dyl and Gabs,” Alasdair says, his heart sinking. What a fucking waste of a morning.  
  
He reaches out to take the rose back, but Arthur refuses to relinquish it. “We might not grow it in the gardens,” he says, “but that doesn’t mean we don’t grow it _anywhere_ here. There’s a conservatory and a whole host of greenhouses, all bursting with the sort of exotic flowers that can’t survive outside.” He grabs hold of Alasdair’s sleeve and tugs it imperiously. “Come with me, and I’ll take you to see Ivan. He should be able to help you.”

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

Alasdair had been expecting the greenhouses to look somewhat like the one his cousin, Claire, had constructed in the garden of her little cottage just outside Deva, though perhaps with full panes of glass making up the walls instead of a patchwork of scavenged fragments cunningly pieced together.  
  
They are, however, far bigger than he ever would have thought to imagine; each one of the four easily approaching the apothecary in size, even though the delicate filigree ironwork of their frames scarcely looks sturdy enough to bear their weight.  
  
As Arthur had promised, they’re full of plants that Alasdair has never seen the like of before – glossy leaved with bright, heavy flowers which fill the air with a heady mixture of strong perfumes – but completely empty of Ivan or anyone else who might be of any use to him.  
  
There are a few workers wearing blue tunics like Arthur’s milling around, watering cans or trowels in hand, but Arthur scoffs at the idea at talking to any of them. “They’re just under-gardeners,” he says, with great contempt and little self-awareness. “They probably couldn’t even tell the difference between your rose and a fucking daffodil.”  
  
“So what you’re telling me is that I’m shit out of luck, right? So sorry, come back tomorrow?” Alasdair snorts humourlessly. “I only got past the guards today because old Jenkins happened to come along at the right time. I reckon they likely got their noses put enough out of joint by _that_ that they won’t let me by them again. Is there no-one else we can ask?”  
  
Arthur shakes his head, “Only Ivan’s sister, Katyusha, I would have suggested that you speak to her ahead of him, in fact, but she’s been given the whole day free to go and visit their family, and left just after dawn.”  
  
“Very useful,” Alasdair scoffs. “Thanks for that.”  
  
Arthur scowls and then grabs Alasdair’s sleeve again, pulling at him as though he’s a recalcitrant donkey that needs the encouragement of brute force to start moving. “Stop being so defeatist,” he scolds. “There’s still every chance we’ll find Ivan in the conservatory.”

 

* * *

 

  
Arthur’s route takes them down a wide flight of stairs that are trimmed in the same dazzlingly white marble as the palace itself, past a large lake whose banks are contoured much too smoothly for it to be anything other than man-made, and then along a wending gravel path lined with topiary shrubs carefully sculpted into the forms of mythological beasts like dragons and griffons.  
  
Alasdair appreciates the skill of the hands that created them, but that’s as far as his admiration of the gardens extends. They seem too sterile; something to be looked at but not lived in. He can’t imagine children playing on the lawns, which are all cut into curling, decorative patterns that would doubtless be ruined by running feet, or see that there’s any place for growing useful things like vegetables and herbs, as Dylan does in their own tiny back yard.  
  
He keeps such thoughts to himself, however, because it would be as good as saying that Arthur’s work itself is useless, and keeps this uneasy silence until they make one final turn past a broad rectangular flower bed bordered by coloured sand and come into sight of the conservatory.  
  
It’s even bigger than the greenhouses, but long and low, extending to at least a quarter of the length of the back wall of the palace. It seems perfectly placed to catch the afternoon sun, and its roof is casting back so much light that it makes Alasdair’s eyes water if he looks at it directly.  
  
Arthur hurries ahead of him to peer through the conservatory’s windows, cupping his hands around his face to counteract their dazzling reflections.  
  
“Can you see this Ivan, then?” Alasdair calls out to him.  
  
"No, but perhaps we could carry on around to the other side and—"  
  
“Or we could just go inside,” Alasdair says, spotting an open door. “We’d probably find him easier that way.”  
  
Arthur spins so quickly on his heel that he almost trips over his own feet. He looks aghast. “We can’t,” he says.  
  
“Don’t see why not,” Alasdair says, shrugging. “As a guard, I am entitled to enter any domicile in Deva if required during the course of an investigation.”  
  
“If you have the owner’s permission, or a warrant signed by the governor,” Arthur shoots back, sounding a little desperate. “That’s the second part of that particular regulation, isn’t it? I remember you reciting it often enough when you were preparing to take your oath.”  
  
Technically speaking, Arthur is correct, but, “For fuck’s sake, Wart, a man’s been murdered. If there’s ever a time that calls for a few rules to be bent, then this is it. And I’m only going to poke my head inside and get a better look at the place, not go rifling through the Prince’s underthings or the like. Besides,” he adds, because Arthur appears unmoved by that argument, “I’d say that this counts as an outbuilding rather than a domicile, and there are completely different laws around those.”  
  
“I think,” Arthur begins, but Alasdair tunes his voice out with an ease born from the practice of many years, and slips in through the door, leaving his brother wringing his hands on the threshold.  
  
For all its great size, the conservatory is sparsely furnished, with only a few small tables and the odd opulently upholstered sofa sprinkled around the place in a seemingly random fashion.  
  
What there is a proliferation of, however, is plants: enamelled vases almost as tall as Alasdair full of towering purple blooms; silver planters containing smaller versions of the topiaries outside; and even a diminutive apple tree – whose stunted fruits are more than likely too tart to make good eating – sprouting out of a deep terracotta pot.  
  
A flash of crimson by the gilded doors that lead into the palace proper catches Alasdair’s eye, and he moves to take a closer look at it. Very faintly, as though carrying from a great distance away, he can hear Arthur squawking something that sounds very urgent given its high pitch, but the exact content of which he also chooses to ignore.  
  
When he draws close enough that he can pick out the finer details from that first impression of colour, he doesn’t know whether he should be relieved or alarmed, because here, at last, in the Imperial Governor of Northern Britannia’s own palace, he’s finally stumbled onto the rose he’s been looking for.  
  
Without thought, he reaches out a hand and runs his thumb over the petals of the nearest flower. They feel just as velvety-soft as the rose’s from the dead man’s shirt had done before they started to grow brittle from lack of water, and are exactly the same shade of red. Even knowing as little as he does about flowers, Alasdair is certain that the one in his pocket must have come from a bush just like this one.  
  
“The Gallian rose. It’s very beautiful, is it not?”  
  
Even before he turns, Alasdair guesses who is addressing him when he hears the strangled noise Arthur makes – somewhat akin to a death rattle, although, thankfully, it is not followed by the sound of his body hitting the floor – from the doorway behind him.  
  
The nephew of the Emperor; eldest son of the King of Gallia’s second wife and third in line to his throne; Deva’s current governor: Prince Francis.  
  
The closest Alasdair has ever brushed with royalty before are those rare occasions when he’s had possession of a gold coin, which have the Emperor’s profile embossed on one side, and, on first impressions, he would still rate those times as the more impressive encounters.  
  
The Prince is perhaps three or four inches shorter than Alasdair himself, though it’s hard to judge with any great accuracy as his shiny black leather boots have impractically high heels. He’s wearing a closely tailored frock coat and waistcoat in Gallian blue, light trousers, and a sword on his belt which has a pommel so densely covered in sapphires and diamonds that Alasdair can’t believe it can be anything approaching well-balanced. In all probability, he wouldn’t be able to swing it with any accuracy in a fight, even if he did manage to draw it without getting the snarling wolves’ heads at each end of the cross-guard tangled in the elaborate embroidery of his voluminous shirt cuffs.  
  
Alasdair’s gaze is caught momentarily by the prince’s hair, which falls in loose waves to his shoulders, though only because it’s the same colour as Arthur’s. He finds nothing else that holds his attention during his brief scan of the man’s face. It’s handsome enough, but in a way that reminds Alasdair of the palace’s gardens; far too regularly set to be of any particular interest.  
  
“Did you find yourself so overcome by the sight that you felt that you couldn’t live another moment without trespassing on my property to take a closer look at them,” the prince continues, “or is there some other reason you’re here?”  
  
He smiles, but only with his mouth. The rest of his face remains completely impassive; even his eyes lack focus, as though stumbling upon an intruder bores rather than scares or angers him.  
  
Lacking any better explanation, and, on reflection, not seeing why he needs one, Alasdair simply tells the truth. “I’m Corporal Alasdair Kirkland of the Deva Town Guard.” He isn’t entirely certain about the correct etiquette of the situation, but supposes he can’t go far wrong with a salute, and so snaps one out. “I’m investigating a murder.”  
  
“A murder?” The prince gasps and presses one palm flat against his chest.  
  
It’s not something Alasdair has ever seen anyone do in real life – no matter how shocking the news he’s had to deliver in the line of duty – only in the lurid paintings that grace the covers of the penny dreadfuls that Dylan pretends ignorance of but keeps in great piles hidden under his bed, all the same.  
  
“Aye,” Alasdair says. “A young man was found murdered in Old Town, and he was in possession of a rose just like these. My inquiries led me to believe that I might learn more in your palace, and so you find me now.”  
  
“How dreadful,” the prince says, but with such overwrought inflection that it seems to make a mockery of horrified feeling instead of suggesting it.  
  
Alasdair is reminded strongly of the actors he’s seen performing on feast days in the Old Town main square, and how they exaggerate each movement and word so that it carries clearly to the very back of the audience. There is something of that same artificiality in the prince’s manner, and Alasdair finds he doesn’t much care for it.  
  
Perhaps if he hadn’t mentioned that the man had been discovered in Old Town, the prince’s dismay would have been more genuine.  
  
“Are you aware of anywhere else nearby that might grow roses like these?” Alasdair asks, fighting hard to prevent any hint of his sudden revulsion bleeding into his words.  
  
“I can’t say that I’ve had reason to see much of anything hereabouts.” The prince lifts his hand from his breast and waves it about airily. “They’re hardly rare flowers, though.”  
  
They might not be rare in Gallia, but they certainly appear to be an oddity in Deva, given how little everyone else Alasdair’s spoken to thus far has known of them.  
  
“The young man looked like he had noble blood,” he presses on. “Might he have taken a cutting from this rose bush on a visit here? Or been given one?”  
  
“It would help if you could give me a name,” the prince says, his stiff smile widening slightly. “I entertain many guests.”  
  
“I don’t have a name, but I can describe him. He was about twenty-five or so, around my height but about half my breadth. Tan skin, short black hair and beard.”  
  
The prince’s expression remains a perfect blank. “I can’t recall having met anyone who looks like that here,” he drawls as he slides a golden watch out from a small pocket in his waistcoat. He flips it open, but doesn’t look to so much as glance at its face before saying, “I’m afraid I don’t have time to answer any more of your questions, Corporal. You can see yourself out.”  
  
His sharp-edged tone makes it clear that his last comment was an order rather than a suggestion, and will be backed up by armed palace guards if Alasdair even thinks about dragging his heels.  
  
He is, therefore, quick to obey.  
  
The moment he steps foot outside the conservatory again, Arthur takes hold of his shoulders with bruising force. “What the fuck did you think you were doing?” he spits. His face has been blanched almost colourless by either rage or fear.  
  
“Making inquiries,” Alasdair says, twisting his body until his brother’s grip breaks. “What the fuck do you think _you’re_ doing, grabbing me like that?”  
  
“I was going to try and shake some sense in you, because you seem to need it. That was the _governor_ – a sodding Gallian prince – that you were questioning like some sort of… of common criminal.”  
  
“A man has been murdered,” Alasdair reminds his brother again. It’s amazing how easily that fact seems to get forgotten. “I’d ask questions of the bloody emperor if I thought he could help me find out who killed him.”  
  
Arthur’s mouth snaps open angrily again, but he appears to think better of whatever fresh invective he was about to let fly, as he eventually just lets out his breath in a heavy sigh. “Well, I hope you don’t mind sharing your bed with Dylan again, because I’m probably going to be finding myself out of a job in the near future and moving home,” he says after a quiet moment spent staring morosely down at his muddy shoes. “I suspect I’m probably going to pay the price for your little excursion into the palace.”  
  
“I don’t think he even knew you were there,” Alasdair reassures him. “You were mostly hidden by the doorframe from where we were standing.”  
  
Arthur’s jaw drops incredulously. “You gave him your name, idiot. ‘Corporal Alasdair Kirkland’,” he says, mimicking both Alasdair’s voice and his salute. “It’s not a common surname, and thus hardly a huge leap of logic to deduce that I’m related to you, at the very least. He won’t trust me to stay working here after this, I imagine.”  
  
“And you’re an idiot if you think he knows the names of his bloody servants.” Men like the prince, Alasdair’s found, very seldom care about such _trifling_ details. “You’ll be fine.”

 

 


	4. Chapter 4

The first hour of Alasdair’s patrol passes in a silence that is near absolute excepting the wind’s incessant howl, and the thud and splash of his and Angus’ thick-soled work boots as they pound across cobbles and through the shallow puddles that lie between them.  
  
The rain had been lashing down when his shift started, and though the storm has quietened somewhat since then, the thick clouds overhead, blocking out all but the faintest anaemic slivers of moonlight, suggest that the current lull is likely to be of very short duration.  
  
Faced with dark skies and fierce weather, Old Town’s inhabitants have thought better of venturing out from their homes or whatever other sheltered spots they had found for themselves when night fell, and the streets are all but deserted. Save for himself and Angus, the only living thing Alasdair has seen for the past twenty minutes at least is a single bedraggled stray dog, nosing around the empty crates in front of Ludwig’s shop in search of scraps.  
  
The overnight shift is Alasdair’s least favourite at the best of times, as it tends to be cold, dull and uneventful apart from the flurry of activity around midnight, when the inns close. From the looks of things, even the Lost Antler is mostly empty, and the odds of a fight breaking out that needs the guards’ intervention are very slim.  
  
It’s not often that Alasdair finds himself ruing his partner’s taciturn nature, but thanks to his early start visiting the palace that morning, he’s already exhausted, and without even a little conversation to help occupy his mind, he’s not certain how he’s going to keep himself awake and moving for yet another seven hours.  
  
He tries his best to distract himself – counting their steps; lighted windows, broken street lamps and the like that they pass – but his thoughts eventually return to how heavy his legs feel, regardless, and inextricably thence to his bed, with its warm, thick quilt and the heated brick Dylan will have slipped between the sheets before retiring to his own room.  
  
Temporary relief comes with the tinny ringing of the Paupers' Temple bell, sounding almost apologetic about announcing the arrival of eleven o’clock, which prompts Angus to suggest, via a series of eloquent hand gestures, that they stop for a moment to have a smoke.  
  
They duck into the doorway of Isabelle’s bakery because it’s the only place in sight that’s sufficiently sheltered that they have any hope of keeping a match burning for long enough to light their pipes, and then shuffle around until they find a way of positioning themselves in the narrow space that results in the least amount of physical contact between the two of them. Alasdair’s shoulder still ends up brushing against the top of Angus’ right arm every time he shifts even slightly, but it’s far preferable for the both of them, he's certain than the chest to chest press they started out in.  
  
Angus takes a long drag on his pipe, and then breathes out a question along with the smoke. “Any luck with that flower today?”  
  
“Aye, not that Arthur was any help, though,” Alasdair says, taking care to pitch his voice as low and as quiet as he possibly can. If he were to accidentally wake Isabelle, then he doubts she’d feel inclined to save them a couple of rolls from her first batch as she usually does, to take as an early breakfast when they finish their patrol. “I had to go above his head.”  
  
Angus’ eyebrows rise interrogatively.  
  
“Straight to the governor himself, in fact. He told me that it was a Gallian rose.”  
  
His words are met with only a slight widening of Angus’ eyes, and a soft exhalation which whistles through his teeth, which are clenched with a sudden tightness about his pipe’s stem. On anyone else, the reaction would appear subdued almost to the point of nonexistence, but for Angus, it’s practically tantamount to passing out from pure shock.  
  
“So, you just so happened to run into him out in the gardens and took it upon yourself to ask?” he asks.  
  
“Naw,” Alasdair says, grinning, “I asked him when he caught me trespassing in his conservatory.”  
  
A chuckle rumbles deep in Angus’ barrel chest. “I’m surprised he didn’t get his guards to come and shoot you on sight.”  
  
“Perhaps he just wanted to do his civic duty; aiding the Town Guard in the pursuit of justice and all that. I doubt it, though. He didn’t seem particularly bothered when I told him there’d been a murder, though he had a good go at _acting_ like he was.”  The memory of the prince’s melodramatic behaviour had annoyed Alasdair more and more as the day wore on. He’s since come to the conclusion that he would have preferred to see the complete indifference he’s sure was the man’s true reaction as the feigned sentiments feel patronising, almost insulting somehow; as though the prince had immediately judged Alasdair to be the type of man who’d be easily fooled and thus think them real. “Likely he hasn’t given me or the poor dead man another thought since I left.”  
  
Angus puffs contemplatively on his pipe. “So, what did you think of him, then?”  
  
“Supercilious. Flashy. So far up his own arse it’s a wonder he can still breathe. Pretty much what you’d expect of a noble, really.” Alasdair shrugs. “Can’t say I was impressed.”  
  
“Impressive or not, he’ll still be able to get you into a whole heap of shit if he decides to report you to the commander,” Angus says with a small grimace.  
  
“As I said, I imagine he forgot I was ever there as soon as I left his sight. I’m not going to lose sleep worrying about it, in any case.”

 

 

* * *

  
  
  
Alasdair’s return to the guardhouse _is_ met with a reprimand from the duty sergeant, but thankfully one that is wholly unconnected to matters palatial.  
  
He and Angus had, it appears, not taken satisfactory care of their armour whilst trudging around Old Town for eight hours at the mercy of the intermittent downpours of rain and, later, sleet, and they were tasked with polishing their breastplates until the sergeant could see his idiotic, demanding, cauliflower-eared face in them before they were allowed to take their leave.  
  
Consequently, it’s almost seven o’clock by the time Alasdair comes into sight of the apothecary, and his head feels like someone has scooped out all of its contents and replaced them with straw. From the taste lying thick at the back of his parched and gritty mouth, it isn’t even _clean_ straw, but akin to the foetid, steaming stuff he’s sometimes helped Claire shovel out of her cow byre in the past.  
  
His focus has narrowed down to a pinpoint whose limits are defined by the number of stumbling paces lay between him and his bedroom; how many minutes it will take him to strip, scrub his face and teeth, and fall into the welcoming embrace of his lumpy mattress afterwards. He’s vaguely aware that several people call out to him in greeting as he passes them by, but he hasn’t enough attention to spare that he can offer them any more than a tired wave of acknowledgment in return.  
  
Twenty paces take him to the door, two through it – with one back to glare up at the bell, whose dejected clonking makes something pound in sympathetic rhythm against the inside of his skull – and then eight more take him across the shop floor and into the kitchen behind. From there, there are only nine steps up, one forward and one across remaining to carry him to his room at last, but the sight of Dylan, slumped across the kitchen table with a mug of tea at his elbow and head in his hands, stops him dead in his tracks.  
  
“You’re up early, Dyl,” he says, the roughness of his throat wearing his voice down to little more than a dry wheeze.  
  
“I haven’t been to bed yet.” Dylan raises his head just far enough so that their gazes make contact, bloodshot eye to bloodshot eye. Even that seems like a struggle, though, given how violently it makes his shoulders shake. “I’ve been up all night running tests on that blood Gabs gave me. Oh,” he adds, smiling weakly, “and worrying about you, of course.”  
  
It’s been a long time since Dylan last fretted himself sleepless whilst Alasdair was out on patrol. Alasdair would perhaps be a little touched if he wasn’t so tired, but he has only sufficient energy to feel one emotion at the moment, and mild irritation wins out. “Why the fuck were you worrying about me?  The most excitement we had was when Angus thought he spotted someone sneaking around the back of Gabs’ clinic, but even that turned out to be an unusually large fox. Everyone apart from the guards had the good sense to stay indoors last night, including the thieves.”  
  
“I thought you might have been arrested for treason.” Dylan picks up a piece of crumpled piece of paper and then holds it out between two trembling fingers. “I received this at the crack of dawn. Arthur sent it along with a young girl who was running errands from the palace.”  
  
Alasdair snatches the paper and then tries to make sense of the terse lines Arthur has scrawled there. He was clearly angry when he wrote it, slashing so hard with his pen that he’d sent ink spraying every which way, and drips of it have obscured some letters entirely. It would be difficult enough to decipher normally, but Alasdair’s straw-filled mind has not the resources to glean anything from it beyond the fact that the blame for Arthur’s still hypothetical sacking is being laid firmly at his feet.  
  
“He’s overreacting, as per usual,” Alasdair says, tossing the note down onto the table. “The prince hasn’t gone whinging about me to the guard’s top brass, so I doubt he’ll be troubling himself to go looking for a servant who might or might not have been there with me and he probably didn’t even catch a glimpse of, regardless.”  
  
“So you did speak to the prince, then?” Dylan says with absent wonder. “I thought Art was probably exaggerating about that, too.”  
  
“Aye, I made inquiries,” Alasdair says. “And, truth be told, I’d be tempted to complain right back if he made an issue of it. Technically, the governor’s head of the Deva Guard – it’s right there alongside all the other fucking useless titles he’s got and does nothing about – so he should be supporting me in my work, at the end of the day.”  
  
Surprisingly, Dylan accepts this with nothing more than a placid nod. Clearly, his energy has almost run out, too; even the anxious kind that he usually has an unhealthy excess of.  
  
“I should see about setting up the shop, I suppose. It’s nearly opening time,” he says, pushing himself to his feet.  
  
Almost immediately, he starts to sway, and Alasdair grabs hold of his arm to steady him. Close to, Dylan’s skin looks ashen, and Alasdair can feel the heat radiating out from it even through the thick material of his brother’s shirt. He always starts running a low-grade fever whenever he’s reached the point of true exhaustion, so it’s a troubling sign.  
  
“Don’t bother with the shop today,” Alasdair says, and when Dylan makes a wordless noise of protest, quickly adds, “How much do you make on a good day? Four or five silvers, at most, and I can pick up another couple of shifts at work to make up for that.”  
  
At the moment, the mere prospect of doing so makes Alasdair feel sick to the stomach, but he’s sure it won’t seem quite so onerous after he’s had himself a decent sleep.

 

 

* * *

  
  
  
It feels like nothing more than a handful of minutes have passed since Alasdair closed his eyes when he’s startled awake by a knocking on the apothecary’s door below.  
  
He lies very still for a little while, hoping that he might yet be dreaming or, failing that, either Michael or Dylan will go and answer the increasingly urgent summons, instead.  
  
But Michael can only ever be roused by a good, hard shake of the shoulders come morning, and could probably sleep through the entire building falling down around his ears with ease, and Dylan is liable to make himself ill if he doesn’t get the rest he needs.  
  
So, Alasdair drags himself out of his cosy quilt nest, curses the cold floorboards underfoot, curses again when he happens to catch sight of the open pocket watch on top of his chest of drawers and notices it’s not quite ten o’clock, and then proceeds to get so tangled up in his shirt and trousers that it takes him three attempts to get them on the right way around and buttoned up straight.  
  
He stumbles twice in his haste to get down the stairs, only saving himself from pitching headfirst into a broken neck the second time by a last-minute grab at the banister, stubs his toe on the edge of the kitchen dresser, and finally limps into the front of the shop just in time to see the weathered wood of the door bowing inwards as their visitor’s patience starts to run out, and their knocking turns into a determined pounding with what sounds like a closed fist.  
  
When Alasdair finally overcomes the confounding intricacies of the single bolt and wrenches open the door at last, he’s confronted with the sight of Corporal Amelia Jones, her face wan and expression desperate. “The captain sent me to bring you up to Paupers',” she says without preamble. Her clenched hand flattens out, and she gives Alasdair a quick and unnecessary salute. “The governor’s there, and he says he won’t speak to anyone but you.”

 

 


	5. Chapter 5

Normally, being around Corporal Jones makes Alasdair, at the grand old age of twenty-nine, feel as though he is irredeemably jaded and world weary.  
  
Rumour has it that she’s the daughter of some fancy lawyer or banker in Eastgate, and thus she didn’t sign up to the guards for the bowl of gruel and two silvers a day it afforded – good pay, Alasdair’s always thought, for a job that demands no more from its recruits than a high threshold for boredom and the ownership of a sturdy pair of boots – but out of a burning need to serve justice and protect the good citizens of Deva.  
  
Alasdair had felt much the same way when he too was nineteen (though, in his case, the gruel played a much greater role in his decision to enlist, at least until he had his first taste of it) but that bright-eyed fervour hadn’t lasted much more than a fortnight, because he very quickly came to realise that he would be protecting those good citizens from _themselves_ more often than any would-be rogue or mugger.  
  
The streets are the safest they’ve ever been since the Empire came to their shores, but even in the absence of an overwhelming tide of criminality there will always be Devans who need a helping hand to steer them home of a night when they’re too pissed to see straight, or a quick word to remind them it‘s inadvisable to start arguments with people twice their size; yes, even if said people have insulted their pint.  
  
Corporal Jones must have had exactly the same realisation as Alasdair during her year’s service with the guards, and yet she still arrives an hour early to every shift in order to practice her swordplay in the guardhouse’s training yard, carries a pistol that she can only have bought with her own coin because the town’s coffers can’t stretch to providing anyone below the rank of captain with one as a matter of course, and approaches each and every one of her patrols with the determined seriousness of a fight to the death for the town’s very survival.  
  
Alasdair admires her quick eye for trouble and willingness to throw herself into any scuffle, however badly the odds might be stacked against her, but he had still found her company exhausting on those few occasions he’d been rota’d to work with her. There were none of the smoke breaks he enjoyed with Angus then, no friendly chats with friends whose paths they happened to cross, only eternal vigilance.  
  
But she seems distracted today; her gaze unfocused instead of constantly searching her surroundings for signs of any evil that might be afoot nearby, and her steps are quick and uneven.    
  
Given the situation as she’d presented it, there seems to be one explanation more likely than any other that would account for her subdued behaviour, by Alasdair’s reckoning.  
  
“Just how much of a bollocking am I looking to get from the captain when we arrive?” he asks.  
  
“The captain’s not angry,” Corporal Jones is quick to assure him. “She’s just… confused, I guess?”  
  
_Confused_? Alasdair has never once seen their captain display anything less than absolute conviction in her every word and action, whatever manner of problem might be thrown her way, from the mundane to the outright bizarre.  
  
It’s no wonder, then, that Corporal Jones looks as though some piece of ground she always thought of as solid has started shifting beneath her feet.  
  
Alasdair is inclined to start feeling the same way himself.  


 

* * *

 

  
The Paupers' Temple stands at what used to be the very centre of Deva.  
  
Originally, it had been dedicated to a deity so ancient their name had been forgotten long before the Empire dragged their own pantheon to Britannia, demanding that they be worshipped with all the jealous exclusivity of a newly courting couple. Those Imperial gods and goddesses, it seemed, were far too grand for any temples built by Britons, and vast, towering edifices had instead been constructed in their name on the land that would later become Highgate.  
  
The old god’s temple had been used as a warehouse for a time, then as a venue for an illegal cock fighting ring. After the guards moved the cock fighters on, it had remained vacant for decades, and was slowly stripped of everything of any value, including the copper that had once covered its roof – meant to, according to an inscription carved on a rock within which proved too heavy to cart away, ‘shine a light bright enough to pierce the very heavens themselves' – which some enterprising metalsmith had doubtless repurposed into pisspots enough to grace the home of every noble in Highgate.  
  
Ten years ago, the temple had been bought by an order of monks from Roma, who were devoted to no particular faith, but rather, they said, to the spiritual succour of the poor, no matter what form that might take.  
  
They cleaned the old building from the inside out, set new pews in the great hall and, in the honeycomb of small rooms behind it, cots for the use of any man, woman or child who found themselves without a dry place to lay their head at night.  
  
In the vaulted cellars beneath, where barrels of consecrated ale were once stored, they tend to the dead whom no-one else wants to claim.  
  
The Kirklands have never been ones to put much stock in religion, and Alasdair the least of them all, but he has a great deal of respect for the work of the Paupers' Order. So much so that, when he has the means, he will drop a copper or two into the collection box chained to the wall by the Temple’s front door.  
  
Usually, the monks will, very kindly, hurry along anyone who chooses to loiter in such a way as to block that box from view, but currently it’s obstructed by the ramrod straight form of Captain Luise Beilschmidt and there’s nary a harried tonsured soul in sight. It would seem that even the monks have been thrown out of their normal routines by the strange events of the morning.  
  
Captain Beilschmidt greets Alasdair with a curt nod of her head, and dismisses Jones with a second.  Her steady gaze does not warm so much as a single degree once the other corporal has left their side, betraying no hint that they have known each other since practically the moment of their births, and Alasdair and Dylan share dinner with Luise and her brothers, Ludwig and Gilbert, at least once a fortnight.  
  
Alasdair has always presumed that that unbiased professionalism is the reason she’s made captain whilst he’s still a corporal, even though they signed up to the guards together.  
  
She nods yet again when Alasdair salutes her, and then asks, “Do you know why the governor might have chosen to come here, Corporal Kirkland? Or why he’s asked for you by name? He’s been very evasive on both counts.”  
  
If the prince has, for whatever reason, neglected to mention their encounter at the palace yesterday, Alasdair sure as hell isn’t going to bring it to his captain’s attention. “Wart could have mentioned that my name, and that I'm in the guard, if their paths happened to cross in the gardens,” he says with a shrug.  
  
“Or perhaps,” he suggests quickly, and, he hopes, more believably, when the captain continues to look unconvinced, “being the head of the guard, and all, he got wind of my exemplary record; thought to himself, ‘Now there’s a man who’ll be able to help me with…’ Whatever it is that’s troubling him.”  
  
He gives the captain an encouraging grin. She does not return it.  
  
Alasdair can hardly blame her for her scepticism. He’s well liked by the other corporals, and generally known for being excellent at his job, but also renowned in the upper echelons of command, as Sergeant Lewis delights in regularly reminding him, for being ‘headstrong’ and ‘having an unseemly disrespect for authority’.  
  
“Which we’ll hopefully find out soon enough now that you’re here,” the captain says, and not without some evident reluctance. It’s obvious that she believes that Alasdair is lying to her, but with royalty’s time and good will at stake, she’s willing to let him keep his secrets for the moment rather than leave the prince waiting any longer. “Follow me.”  
  
The captain leads Alasdair to a small vestibule that is undecorated save for a thick rag rug that had probably been a gift to the order from some thankful worshipper or other, and the prince hurries over as soon as they set foot through the door.  
  
His outfit today is a much more sombre affair, consisting of a black frockcoat, dark trousers, and a plain shirt. His sword belt is empty.  
  
“Thank you for fetching him, Captain,” he says, offering Luise the same fatuous fake smile that had so irritated Alasdair the day before. It only grows wider when he turns towards Alasdair and adds, “Corporal Kirkland, what a pleasure it is to see you again.”  
  
Alasdair had been rattled enough during their previous encounter that he hadn’t given a great deal of thought to the proper etiquette of how he should address the prince. Now, with his boss watching his reactions with every ounce of her considerable concentration, it seems imperative that he gets it right. Princes, he knows, should be ‘Your Highness’, but governors have always been ‘sir’. A thorny conundrum, to be sure, but lacking any guidance, he can only go with his gut, and his gut tells him that only one of the prince’s roles really demands any sort of deference.  
  
“Sir,” he says, saluting briskly.  
  
The prince’s thin eyebrows twitch upwards slightly, but even if Alasdair had made the wrong choice he doesn’t see fit to correct it. Instead, he directs his next words towards the captain.  
  
“Corporal Kirkland was visiting his brother at the palace yesterday, and we happened to fall into conversation,” he says. The lie is spoken so smoothly that it makes his behaviour in the conservatory seem like even more of a mockery than before. “He mentioned during the course of it that a young man had been murdered, and he appeared to be a noble. Sadly, I didn’t recognise the poor unfortunate from the corporal’s description, but I couldn’t help but wonder later if I might have been mistaken. That question kept me from getting any sleep, and I knew I had to come here as soon as I could and see him for myself; lay my mind to rest.”  
  
There is nothing about the prince’s clear, unblemished complexion, bright eyes, and silky smooth hair that suggests he’d suffered from a restless night, but the captain seems willing to take him at his dubious word, regardless.  
  
“Accompany the governor to the crypts, Corporal,” she says. “I’ll wait here for your return.”  
  


 

* * *

  
  
  
  
The thick stone walls of the crypts keep them cool enough to have slowed the corpse’s inevitable decay a little, but the stink of putrefaction is still hanging heavy in the air of the narrow annex the monks have laid it out in.

  
They have clearly washed both the dead man and his clothes, but even though his skin is clean, it has an obvious green blue tinge, and his body has bloated so much that the seams of both his shirt and trousers are strained.  
  
His face, with its sunken eyes and swollen cheeks, is so distorted that Alasdair has his doubts that the prince would be able to recognise it even if he could bring himself to take a look.  
  
He had only managed to take a few faltering steps towards the slab before reeling back, a handkerchief pressed beneath his nose. His breathing sounds shallow and erratic, but then Alasdair supposes such things are to be expected when one’s nostrils are blocked by a great wad of lace.  
  
“My apologies,” the prince says, his voice fluttering weakly. “I’m not used to being so close to death.”  
  
No, Alasdair corrects himself, it’s probably all the shit that keeps filling his mouth that’s choking him, not the handkerchief.  
  
“I thought you took command of a legion during the Empire’s last campaign in Germania a couple of years back,” he says blandly. “How did you manage to avoid being around dead bodies then?”  
  
“My responsibilities were mainly strategic,” the prince replies after a slight pause. “I spent most of my time in a tent, studying maps.”  
  
Alasdair’s quite willing to accept that – the prince hardly strikes him as the type who’s willing to get his well-manicured hands dirty – but: “I had heard that you were a crack shot with a rifle, and insisted on walking the field after every battle.”  
  
The prince chuckles lightly. “And who told you that, Corporal.”  
  
“They might be a bit out of date by the time they arrive here, but we do get the Roman periodicals in the end, sir,” Alasdair says. “They talked about little else for months.”  
  
The prince’s eyes grow almost comically round and wide, and, at first, Alasdair thinks he must be taken aback to have been called out on one of his lies. The longer he stares, however, the more uncomfortably aware Alasdair becomes that, no, that wasn’t what had surprised the prince, at all.  
  
“I can read, you know,” he snaps, feeling defensive and then, almost immediately afterwards, ashamed of that initial reaction. He knows a good many exceptional men and women who have never learnt their letters. Still, even his guilt isn't sufficient to stop him from adding, “Not just the trade tongue, but your country’s language, too.”  
  
The shocked silence continues for another beat or two, but eventually the prince drawls out an amused-sounding, “ _Vraiment_?”  
  
Alasdair limits his reply to a brisk, unadorned, “ _Oui_ ,” to spare himself from the risk of embarrassment.  
  
His da had always said his accent was atrocious; an unholy mixture of Devan and Gallian that made him sound like he was speaking some other language entirely.  
  
The prince stares at him for a little while longer – long enough, in fact, that Alasdair’s entire body begins to tingle with the restless need to start moving again – and then, all of a sudden, he shoves his handkerchief back into his pocket and marches over to the dead body.  
  
His strides are so deliberate and precise, and his eye so steady when he bends down to study the copse, that Alasdair is tempted to believe that the battlefield stories about him might be true, after all.

“He attended a party I hosted three nights ago,” the prince says when he finishes his examination, his voice entirely free of the extravagant inflections Alasdair had hitherto concluded were part and parcel of his normal tone.  
  
It’s neither the time nor the place to wonder about such things, however, so Alasdair presses on. “The day before he was killed.” His heart thumps a little harder with the words, quickening in anticipation. “And do you know his name?”  
  
“I remember that we shook hands and exchanged pleasantries, but no more than that,” the prince says, and, for the first time, his chagrin actually sounds genuine. “I was introduced to nigh on a hundred people who had been strangers to me before that night, and I have a good memory for faces, but not names, I’m afraid.”  
  
Even when Alasdair thinks he can see a clear road opening up in front of him where this murder is concerned, it turns out to be nothing but a dead end in disguise, seemingly. He doesn’t bother trying to stifle his groan of disappointment, and the prince’s brow furrows a little when he hears it.  
  
“My secretary should still have the list he drew up for the addressing of invitations,” he says. “And, if even if he did happen to discard it, my brother, sister and cousins were all in attendance at the same party, and they might be better able to recollect the man’s name than I am.”  
  
The crushing weight of frustration bearing down on Alasdair’s chest lightens a little. “So, you’ll check with them, then?” he asks. “Send me word if do happen to learn his name?”  
  
The prince cocks his head to one side, and his gaze becomes sharp, almost calculating. “That seems needlessly complicated,” he says, flapping a hand dismissively. “My carriage is waiting outside; why don’t you accompany me back to the palace and then you can interrogate anyone you might wish to your heart’s content?”

 

 


	6. Chapter 6

Prince Francis’ coach looks as much out of place in Old Town as the man himself.  
  
It’s a huge, gaudy thing; its bottom half painted deep, Imperial red, and the top covered with ornate carvings of exotic birds flying through a tangle of grape vines. At each corner of its roof there stands one of the ubiquitous gilded statues of a bare-chested man or woman, their heads set at such an angle that they seem to be sneering down at the small group of people that has gathered in order to gawp at the carriage.  
  
They’re being held at a respectful distance by the coachman, who has clambered down from his boot seat to flick his long whip menacingly at anyone who looks as though they might try and get too close or touch something they shouldn’t. Both the coachman and postilion boy, mounted on the left rear horse of the four harnessed, are dressed in long coats of Gallian blue, and the horses themselves – which for peculiar reasons of equine esoterica, Alasdair knows should be thought of as grey, though they look nothing less than pure white to him – have long feather plumes of the same colour sprouting out from the tops of their bridles.  
  
The coach’s doors are decorated with a fleur-de-lis in gold leaf on one side, and a snarling Roman wolf’s head in silver on the other. The prince chooses to head for the door that bears his own crest even though the crowd is thickest there and he has to ask the coachman to brandish his whip at several of the more persistent gawkers in order to do so. Alasdair can’t pretend to understand the prince’s reasoning, but he suspects the gesture is either a small act of useless defiance, or, more likely, simple boastfulness.  
  
The coachman helps the prince into the coach, and then returns promptly his seat at the front of it, leaving Alasdair to make his own way.  
  
Alasdair’s own way comprises a short run up and subsequent leap through the doorway, followed by a long, humiliating moment of undignified scrabbling as he catches his trailing leg on a gilt wood leaf. This ungainly display sends a ripple of laughter through the assembled crowd, and births a smirk on the prince’s lips, if not any spark of chivalric feeling in his breast, seemingly. He does not offer to lend a hand, so Alasdair has to disentangle his trousers unaided before he can slam the heavy door shut, taking immense satisfaction in blocking out the sight of the grinning upturned faces outside.  
  
The smirking face inside smooths into an expression of aloof disinterest soon after, and the prince then motions for Alasdair to take a seat on the high-backed bench opposite his own. Alasdair complies, but with a good deal of caution, as the red velvet upholstery looks delicate and liable to rip asunder if he plants his arse down too firmly. Once he’s settled himself, and following no obvious signal from the prince that Alasdair can see, the carriage sets off.  
  
Alasdair has ridden in a cart before, so he’d known to brace himself for the initial jerk of movement, but where he’d been expecting to be jostled and bounced around thereafter, he’s only swayed, very gently, from side to side.  
  
“The coach’s body is slung by leather braces,” the prince says, presumably prompted by some small noise of surprise Alasdair hadn’t been aware he was making. “They absorb most of the shocks in the road, making the ride more even.”  
  
Before Alasdair can respond to this unasked for nugget of information – and he was planning on _thanking_ the man, as he’s always been interested in learning the mechanics of such things – the prince leans back in his seat and turns his head aside, giving every indication that he does not care whether Alasdair even took heed of his words or not.  
  
All of his attention is instead directed towards his hair, which he rakes his fingers through again and again as if combing out knots, even though it seems quite clear to Alasdair that there aren’t any there to be untangled.  
  
Once he’s finished faffing around with his hair – a task that must take a minute or two to complete and yet still leaves it looking exactly the same as it did before – he adjusts his shirt cuffs, straightens the lapel of his coat, and then stretches out his legs to their fullest extent. They’re long for his height, and despite the vast gulf between their two benches, the prince’s boot heel still strikes against Alasdair’s ankle before he draws his knees back up again.  
  
Alasdair is immediately suspicious that the contact was deliberate, as the elegant way the prince comports himself and the grace of his movements otherwise suggest that he is by no means a clumsy man.  
  
The prince’s next words only serve to confirm this theory: “ _Je suis désolé_ ,” where he could just as easily have said sorry.  
  
Likely a test, then – and a petty one at that – to determine if Alasdair had simply memorised a single word of Gallian that he’d overheard somewhere. Alasdair knows he shouldn’t rise to it, but the amused glint in the prince’s eyes annoys him more than he ought to let it.  
  
“ _Ce n'est pas grave_ ,” he says, cringing before the phrase has even finished leaving his mouth.  
  
When set in such close contrast to the native accent, it’s more obvious than ever that Da was right about his own; his Devan burr rounds out the edge of every constant that should be sharp, and weighs down every vowel that should be long and lilting.  
  
He expects the prince to laugh, or at least start smirking again, but he simply levels the same considering stare at Alasdair as he had down in the Temple crypts.  
  
For a time, Alasdair tries to ignore the prince’s open scrutiny, but even when he looks down at his hands, glances out of the window, or even closes his eyes, he can’t shake the uncomfortable feeling that he is being judged in some way. It makes him acutely aware, as he hadn’t been before, that, in his haste to open the door to Jones that morning, he had thrown on clothes that might have been the closest to hand, but probably weren’t really fit to be worn outside the apothecary, never mind in the presence of an Imperial governor. His shirt sleeves are both patched at the elbow – the right, neatly stitched, by Arthur; the left, distinctly less so, by himself – and his trousers are so threadbare at the knees that he can see his skin beneath.  
  
The longer he dwells on it, though, the angrier he becomes about his own embarrassment. He works hard to earn enough coin to keep food on his brothers’ table and their ma’s memory alive in her shop, and if that leaves him with little to spare to clothe himself in finery, there’s no shame in that as far as he can see. He refuses to let himself feel any just because a man who lives off his father’s fortune and the Empire’s back likely thinks that he should.  
  
He lifts his head and stares back at the prince.  
  
The prince inhales sharply – Alasdair wouldn’t quite call it a gasp, but it’s close enough – and then says, “Corporal—“ He cuts himself off with a frown and quick shake of his head. “That sounds horribly formal for such close quarters as these. May I call you Alasdair?”  
  
“That depends; can I call you Francis?”  
  
The question emerges with so little intercession on the part of Alasdair’s brain mind that it shocks him, though not half so much as it does the prince, it seems. He gives a loud snort of laughter that’s far too coarse to be anything other than an unstudied reaction.  
  
“I could have you flogged for that,” the prince says, pressing two fingers against his lips as though in an effort to hold back the smile that seems determined to form upon them, regardless.  
  
“No, you couldn’t,” says Alasdair, with all the confidence of a man who actually took the trouble to learn all of Deva’s laws and ordinances before taking his oath, unlike most of his fellow guards. “It’s been illegal as a punishment in this part of Britannia for the past ten years. Governor Russo couldn’t abide it; said it made far too much mess for the little good it did, apparently.”  
  
Which, of course, the governor should already be aware of, as even Alasdair knows that the edicts of all of his predecessors are recorded in a great tome which will now be stored in his palace’s library. It does not come as any surprise that he is not, however.  
  
“Imprisoned, then,” the prince suggests.  
  
“My remark, though it might be considered rude by some and ill-judged by most, constitutes neither treason nor sedition,” Alasdair says, rather enjoying the opportunity to flex his legal muscles. Most times, when he arrests someone, they’re contravening much less complex rules such as ‘don’t hit other people with blunt objects’ or ‘don’t take things that don’t belong to you'. “I probably wouldn’t get more than a week, fortnight at most, and only that in the hopes that I might get some sense knocked into me by another prisoner whilst I’m there.”  
  
“Most people wouldn’t dare to speak in this way to a prince, no matter how inconsequential a punishment the obviously flawed legal system of this town may give them.” The prince’s attempt at stern intonation would be far more convincing if his tone didn’t keep being lightened by suppressed laughter. “I have to wonder how it is that you do.”  
  
Alasdair shrugs. “My Da's family used to have a grand fortune. Some spendthrift bastard frittered most of it away before we ever saw a copper of it, but there are those who say that we Kirklands still have a touch of the arrogance that comes with coin, anyway.”  
  
Which is really only half a truth, as he’s never heard anyone hint of such thoughts about Dylan, who is self-effacing to the point of abasement, or Michael, who doesn’t speak enough to anyone outside their family circle for them to have formed any real opinion of his character.  
  
But it has definitely said of Caitlin in the past, when she refused to live and die in Old Town as several of their neighbours believed she should, and Arthur too, because he has never been humble about the advantages their father’s education gave him.  
  
Alasdair’s superiors often call him arrogant, simply because he refuses to grovel in front of a title if he does not honour the person who bears it.  
  
He prefers to think of himself as egalitarian.  
  
Still, whatever Sergeant Lewis might think, he is capable of extending professional courtesies when they’re required, no matter what his personal opinions may be. He still needs the prince’s help, after all, and there’s no guarantee that his good humour will last. It’s probably best to stop pushing before he discovers where the limits of the prince’s patience for insubordination lie.  
  
“I suppose I should continue calling you ‘sir’, in any case,” he says. “Might raise a few eyebrows, otherwise.”  
  
“Indeed.” The prince lets his hand drop away from his face, untethering his smile. “Though, strictly speaking, protocol demands that you address me as ‘Your Highness’, Corporal.  A prince always outranks a governor.” He chuckles when Alasdair scowls. “I believe I can learn to tolerate ‘sir’, though.  Our working relationship would doubtless be doomed from here on out if I did not, as the alternative seems to pain you .”  
  
Alasdair wasn't aware that they'd ever _started_ a working relationship. He chooses to keep his peace, however, due to the fear that questioning the prince's judgement on that score could serve to humiliate him, and thus humiliated, he might think to renege on the 'Highness' thing in retaliation.

 

 


	7. Chapter 7

Alasdair has never seen anyone create quite such a stir as the prince does when they arrive at the palace.  
  
From the moment he steps foot inside the building, he’s ambushed by a steady stream of liveried servants, each one begging to perform some mundane task or other for the man.  
  
Would he like them to take his coat? Should a fire be lit in his private drawing room? Do he and his… guest require something to eat? Some wine, perhaps?  
  
The prince shakes his head to each question save the last, which not only gives him pause enough to stop him dead in his tracks, but also prompts him to ask, “Do you care for wine, Corporal?”  
  
When Alasdair was twelve, his da arrived home from the Lost Antler one night carrying a bottle of wine that he’d won in a card game. He’d set it down proudly on the dresser, and there it had sat for months, untouched by anything save for Da’s eyes, which often lingered on it with the sort of quiet reverence others might reserve for a holy relic.  
  
On the evening of Ma’s birthday, he’d finally picked up that bottle again and brought it to the table. After opening it, he lifted the cork to his nose and took a deep appreciative sniff of it, his eyes rolling back as if the smell had sent him into divine ecstasies. Everyone giggled at that, even Ma, who usually reacted to Da’s occasional histrionics with nothing more than a fond, though slightly exasperated, smile.  
  
Da presented a glass to Ma, gave her a deep, courtly bow that made her laugh even harder, and then poured a small measure into a cup for Alasdair, Caitlin, Dylan and Arthur to share.  
  
Alasdair remembers that his mouth had watered when it was his turn to take the cup, because his da’s excitement had encouraged him to imagine that wine must be the most delicious thing a person could ever have to drink. Accordingly, he’d taken a long draught of the stuff; something which he immediately regretted. It was so bitter that it’d made his tongue feel as if it was shrivelling up like a slug that had had salt tossed on it, and burnt the back of his throat when he did reluctantly swallow it down.  
  
The disappointment was almost worse than the taste, and Alasdair has never felt inclined to sample wine again since that day.  
  
“I’ve tried it once but didn’t much like it,” he tells the prince. “Tasted like stewed tea mixed with vinegar.”  
  
The prince’s nostrils flare wide, as though he’s caught wind of an unpleasant smell. “I can assure you that no wine in my cellars tastes like _that_ ,” he says.  
  
He rattles off a long name to the waiting servant, and then tells them to, “Make sure that there’s a bottle waiting in the rose drawing room for the corporal to sample after he’s finished talking to M. Jansen.”  
  
In Alasdair’s opinion, if a place has so many drawing rooms that they need to be specified by colour, then it has a definite superfluity of them. In fact, the palace would seem to have an overabundance of every sort of room, if the number of doors he can see leading off the entrance hall alone are anything to go by.  
  
That sheer sense of scale is, thus far, the sole thing he’s seen that’s impressed him even slightly about the palace’s interior. In decoration, it’s much as he would have guessed it might be – if he’d ever thought to consider it, anyhow – having seen the gardens outside.  
  
White marble tiles the hall’s floor, the numerous doors are edged in gilt, and there’s a wide variety of the ubiquitous Rōman statuary nipples on display, lovingly rendered in painted plaster, gold and polished granite, respectively.  
  
The ceiling is so high that Alasdair almost expects to see clouds gathering around the huge crystal chandelier that hangs from the centre of it, and the stairs that sweep upwards from the very back of the hall are so wide that they could easily accommodate horses being ridden two abreast.  
  
These exaggerated proportions are no doubt meant to impress any visitor with a sense of their own comparative insignificance, but Alasdair doesn’t like to be manipulated, whether it’s by architecture or anything else.  
  
He deliberately straightens his back out of its usual slouch, squares his shoulders, and makes sure to look the prince directly in the eye as he says, “I presume this Jansen is your secretary?”  
  
A faint smile quickly flits across the prince’s lips before he nods. “You might know him, in fact. I believe he has family in Old Town.”  
  
“Thousands of people live in Old Town,” Alasdair says, “and, despite my line of work, I likely haven’t met even a tenth of them. I can’t say the name rings a bell.”

 

 

* * *

 

  
  
Neither, it turns out, does Jansen himself.  
  
He is a small man, whip-thin, with the sort of hungry expression that Alasdair has seen on the faces of many men and women of humble beginnings who have managed to claw themselves up to a far higher position than they ever thought possible. His hair is too dark to be called blond, too light to be brown, and worn as long as the prince’s, though it’s tied back into a low tail with a length of grey ribbon which matches both his waistcoat and trousers.  
  
When the prince introduces Alasdair, Jansen shakes his hand briskly, his grip a little too tight. “Luca Jansen,” he says, equally brusque. His accent doesn’t betray a single hint of Old Town that Alasdair can discern. “Prince Francis’ private secretary. How may I help you, Corporal?”  
  
“There was a party here, three nights ago,” Alasdair says. “I was hoping you might have kept the guest list.”  
  
Jansen’s eyes turn immediately towards the prince, obviously seeking confirmation, which is granted by a small, answering bob of the prince’s head.  
  
“I did,” he says. “I like to keep a copy of all such documents for our records. I’ll fetch it for you.”  
  
The bookshelves which stretch from floor to ceiling across three walls of Jansen’s cramped office are almost completely filled by closely packed books and documents, and yet he still moves unerringly to a single spot without having to check in any sort of ledger or record beforehand.  
  
“Was there a problem at the party?” he asks as he extracts a roll of paper from the middle of a great pile of them. “A theft, perhaps? If I recall correctly, there were a number of guests from Eastgate in attendance that night.”  
  
Jansen pronounces ‘Eastgate’ with all the derision of a Highgate lord. If he did originate in Old Town as the prince believes, he’s taken care to scrub every trace of it from more than just his voice.  
  
“Nothing was taken, M. Jansen,” the prince says. “We’re just looking for a name.”  
  
Alasdair unfurls the scroll after Jansen hands it to him, and then asks the prince, “Does anyone jog your memory?”  
  
He expects the prince to take the paper from him, but instead he moves to study it over Alasdair’s shoulder, standing close enough that his breath warms the side of Alasdair’s neck every time he exhales.  
  
From the first moment of their brief acquaintance, the prince seems to have taken some perverse enjoyment in trying to throw Alasdair off-guard, and so, although his initial impulse is to flinch away from the man, Alasdair forces himself to keep still.  
  
Evidentially the prince has little patience for his game once it becomes clear Alasdair isn’t going to give him the satisfaction of reacting to it, and he scans the names quickly thereafter. “I’m afraid not, Corporal,” he says. “It seems we’re going to have to turn to my family for help, after all.”

 

 

* * *

 

  
  
  
Alasdair had presumed the rose drawing room must be so called because of the colour of its carpet or wallpaper, but it appears that it's the ornamentation therein that had given it its name.  
  
The low couch and chairs ranged beneath the window are upholstered in a green fabric patterned with white roses, and the paintings hung on the walls do not depict governors and emperors past as the ones in the hall outside do, but are still lifes full of fruit and flowers.  
  
Each one of the bright, cloisonnéd vases standing on the broad mantelpiece at the far end of the room contains an arrangement of the flowers themselves, including one particularly abundant in Gallian roses.  
  
“Though the conservatory was locked the night of the party, this room was left open,” the prince says, obviously noticing where Alasdair’s gaze is directed. “Our unfortunate gentleman might have taken his rose from here.”  
  
“Maybe,” Alasdair agrees, but the more he thinks on it, the less sense that explanation seems to make.  
  
The Gallian roses might be beautiful enough to make a perfect courting gift, as Dylan had presumed Alasdair’s own rose to be, but unlike Alasdair’s comments in the carriage earlier, stealing from the governor’s palace _could_ be considered treason if the prince felt vindictive enough to pursue things that far.  
  
Alasdair has heard it said that romantic love makes people very foolish, but for his own peace of mind, he’d prefer to believe that it doesn’t cause them to ignore every instinct of self-preservation they might otherwise possess.  
  
In any case, without knowing how many roses that particular vase had contained before the party – something which he’s sure the prince never thought necessary to ascertain – such a scenario must remain nothing more than idle speculation, its likelihood included.  
  
Roses thus discounted, Alasdair turns his attention back towards the prince, and is surprised to see that he’s pouring out the wine he’d asked to be set out earlier. Having witnessed how eagerly his servants had offered to fetch and carry for him, Alasdair had assumed that the prince didn’t do a thing for himself save get out of bed in the morning and, it was to be hoped, wipe his own arse when he visited the privy.  
  
“I think you’ll find _this_ wine quite palatable,” the prince says as he hands Alasdair one of the intricately etched glasses.  
  
It is, to Alasdair’s relief, not even half full; he could likely down the whole thing in one go and not have to taste it at all.  
  
When he lifts the glass to his lips in order to do just that, however, the prince gives a small cry of alarm.  
  
“You can’t just _drink_ it,” he says, looking scandalised.  
  
“Why not?” Alasdair asks. “What else are you supposed to do with wine?”  
  
“Enjoy the bouquet, to start,” the prince says, sticking his long, pointed nose near his own glass. He inhales deeply in demonstration, his eyelids stuttering shut. “Wine is as much of an experience as it is a drink. It should be savoured.”  
  
Thinking that missing out this clearly vital step might have ruined his appreciation of Da’s wine all those years ago, Alasdair takes a cautious sniff of his own glass. Contrary the prince’s protestations, he can detect a definite note of old tea winding its way through the far stronger scent of alcohol.  
  
“Is it supposed to smell like anything in particular,” he asks, certain he must be missing something.  
  
“This particular winery and vintage? Blackberries and oak,” the prince says.  
  
Alasdair inhales again, and again fails to smell anything even remotely like either blackberries or oak. Clearly, princely noses are far more discerning organs than those of guards.  
  
“Right,” he says, “can I try some _now_.”  
  
“Go ahead,” the prince says readily enough, although he does sound a little petulant nevertheless.  
  
Alasdair takes a small sip, and rolls it around his mouth before swallowing. It tastes rich, a little woody, and is not as sour as Da’s wine had been, though it does leave a similar bitter aftertaste on the back of his tongue.  
  
“It’s not too bad,” he concedes.  
  
The prince sighs despondently. “Perhaps it will grow on you in time,” he says.  
  
Despite his insistence that Alasdair linger over his measure, the prince empties his own glass in a single gulp. “I’m going to ring for a servant to fetch my cousins now,” he says as he refills it. “I should warn you now, Corporal, that they’re the youngest sons of the Emperor himself, so you cannot be as impertinent with them as I have allowed you to be with me.”        

 

 

* * *

 

  
                  
Princes Lovino and Feliciano are alike enough that Alasdair thinks he would have difficulty telling them apart had the elder of the two not worn a face like a whole month’s worth of wet weekends from the moment the brothers were shown into the drawing room by a servant even more obsequious than those who had been waiting on Prince Francis.  
  
It’s unclear whether his sour expression betrays a more general surliness of disposition, or that he simply resents being made to interact with someone so far beneath his own station that they could, in the normal course of things, expect to be treated as invisible. His reasons make no odds, as, either way, he scowls through Alasdair’s description of the murdered man, immediately proclaims ignorance of his name, and then stomps off to the window to stare moodily out at the garden below.  
  
Prince Feliciano, on the other hand, is full of questions for Alasdair. Were the man’s eyes closely-set or wide? Dark brown or light? What shape was his nose? His lips? Did he have –  
  
“We don’t need you to paint us a portrait of him, cousin,” Prince Francis says, his voice far kindlier than Alasdair has heard it sound thus far. “We just need to know if you recall his name.”  
  
“Ah, I’m not sure I even met him. I think I would remember if I did, because he sounds as though he was very handsome. I really only talked to Lovi that night, didn’t I, Lovi.” Prince Lovino maintains his silent vigil, refusing to be drawn on the subject, and eventually Prince Feliciano turns to Alasdair and says, “I’m sorry, Corporal.”  
  
From everything he’s ever read about the emperor, Alasdair had come to understand that he was the sort of man who believed that apologies were nothing but an admittance of fallibility – a sign of weakness – and it comes as such a surprise that he apparently hasn’t taught his youngest son the same thing that Alasdair struggles to find his tongue for a moment.  
  
“It’s all right, Your Highness,” he finally manages to splutter out. “I appreciate you taking the time to answer my questions, in any case.”  
  
Prince Feliciano beams him a smile full of what looks to be genuine happiness and gratitude before politely excusing himself from both Alasdair and Prince Francis’ company. His brother trails along behind him, steps dragging sullenly, and he does not do Alasdair the courtesy of making eye contact, much less giving a farewell.  
  
After they’ve left, Prince Francis glowers at Alasdair as though he’s perpetrated some great insult against the very institution of the Empire or something like.  
  
Alasdair can’t think of a single thing that he might have done or said that might have caused offence – although he had been severely tempted to tell Prince Lovino to stop being such a miserable arse, as he does Michael when he’s acting the same way, he had managed to restrain himself in the end – so he asks, “Did I not tug my forelock hard enough?”  
  
“No, quite to the contrary. You were perfectly polite,” the prince says, his glare intensifying.  
  
“Was it something I _didn’t_ say, then,” Alasdair pushes on, honestly perplexed.  
  
“No, I only...” The prince sighs heavily, and then brushes the rest of his words aside with a quick flick of his wrist. “It’s nothing.”  
  
His unhappy moue suggests otherwise, but as he seems unwilling to vocalise exactly what’s bothering him, Alasdair concludes that whatever rule of etiquette he had transgressed, it was one so petty that even the prince is feels embarrassed about wanting to upbraid him for it.  
  
As such, it seems pointless to contemplate it any further, and in an effort to similarly divert the prince’s thoughts elsewhere, Alasdair asks him, “Do your cousins live with you, then?”  
  
“No, they’re simply staying for a few months,” the prince says, his tone flat and dull. “Like me, they have an older brother and sister – the heir and the spare – to take care of all the official duties the Emperor expects of his children. It leaves Lovino and Feliciano with little to do with their time other than to sing, paint, dance and study at home, or else visit with their family.  
  
“Feliciano is a great favourite of my uncle’s, though.” The prince takes another indelicate swig of his wine. “There has been talk of him being made King of Gallia upon my father’s death, instead of my oldest brother.”  
  
Alasdair has heard similar rumours, but: “Can they just ignore the rules of succession like that?”  
  
“If by ‘they’, you mean the Emperor, then of course he can. The so-called Kings and Queens are no more than governors with exalted titles, you know. I’d be King of Northern Britannia myself now had the Emperor who conquered these lands not banished the very notion of royalty from them for fear of later uprisings.”  
  
“I am aware of that,” Alasdair snaps, annoyed that the prince is apparently still persisting in the belief that he is ignorant and uneducated. “I have studied my own country’s history.”  
  
The prince’s eyebrows twitch upwards slightly. “So, you had lessons in history as well as Gallian,” he says. “Did you enjoy them?”  
  
“I always preferred natural philosophy,” Alasdair says, shrugging. “My brother, Arthur, is the historian. My da was writing a book about the history of Deva before he died, and Arthur’s determined to finish what he started.”  
  
“That would be the brother who works as one of my under-gardeners?” When Alasdair nods, the prince chuckles dryly, and then remarks, “What a fascinating family you have, Corporal.”

His fascination is short-lived, however, and he peers listlessly down into the depths of his almost empty glass after he finishes speaking.  
  
When it becomes apparent that the prince is prepared to allow the silence between them to stretch out into absurdity, Alasdair clears his throat and says, “On the subject of family, didn’t you say that your brother and sister attended the party, too? We should probably speak to them next.”  
  
The prince startles like a man shocked out of deep slumber, almost dropping his wine in the process. “Yes, of course,” he says, blinking rapidly. “My brother, Alfred, spends most of his afternoons in the billiards room, so he should be easy enough to find. I shall go and fetch him myself.”  
  
Because it’s something he’s puzzled over before, and he’ll likely never have a better opportunity than the present to have his curiosity satisfied, Alasdair asks, “That’s not a Gallian name, is it?”  
  
“Not traditionally, no. My father did give Maman the privilege of choosing one of our names herself, however, and her father was half Briton.” The prince flashes Alasdair a wider smile than any he has bestowed on him before; one that reveals the bottom edges of all of his neat, white teeth. “I suppose you could say that my posting here has allowed me to return to my roots.”

 

 

* * *

 

  
  
Prince Alfred shares his older brother’s eye and hair colour, but there the familial resemblance ends.  
  
His clothes are just as well-tailored as Prince Francis’, but he seems to have none of his fastidiousness with them: his frock coat and red waistcoat are both unbuttoned, his shirt tails untucked, and his boots are scuffed around the toes.  
  
He laughs often, smiles even more frequently, and is filled with the sort of boundless, youthful energy that results in him being incapable of staying still for more than a minute at a time.  
  
He spurns returning Alasdair’s short bow of welcome in favour of shaking his hand so vigorously that Alasdair briefly fears that his shoulder might become dislocated.  
  
Afterwards, he throws himself down onto an armchair, and shifts his weight around as though in an effort to make himself comfortable. The attempt clearly fails, as moments later, he springs to his feet again and moves to the couch. Once settled there, he stretches his arms out across the backrest, and lets his legs fall into a lazy sprawl.  
  
He twitches and interrupts his way through Alasdair’s description of the murdered man, quickly professes to not have the faintest clue about who he might be, and then, like Prince Feliciano, starts firing his own set of questions towards Alasdair.  
  
Unlike his cousin, he’s not interested in further details about the victim’s appearance, but Alasdair’s profession, instead.  
  
His vision of a guard’s work shares a great deal of similarity with Michael’s – rooftop chases feature heavily – and Alasdair can only suppose that they must also share the same tastes in reading material.  
  
The comparison amuses him, and he’d be happy enough to play along for a while, but Prince Francis appears to have far less tolerance for his brother’s digressions.  
  
“That will be all, Alfred,” he says, sharply enough that it cuts through Prince Alfred’s excited and increasingly loud chatter even though he doesn’t raise his voice. He squeezes the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger, indicating that he has a headache building. “Please go and tell Madeline that we’d like to speak to her now.”

 

 

* * *

  
  
  
In appearance, Princess Madeline is a feminine mirror to her brother Alfred, but, on first impressions, she doesn’t also share his exuberant personality.  
  
She seems shy, in fact; entering the drawing room near silently save for the soft rustle of the full, crinoline skirt of her pale violet dress, and keeping her eyes lowered as Prince Francis introduces her to Alasdair. Alasdair bows to her as he had the rest of her kin, and, to his astonishment, she drops a quick curtsey in answer.  
  
She appears to draw some courage from this exchange of formalities, because she lifts her head afterwards, and says in a firm, steady voice, “Alfred told me about the man you’re looking for, Corporal, and I believe I might be able to help you.”  
  
Alasdair’s muscles tense in anticipation. “Do you know what he was called?”  
  
A slight blush rises to Princess Madeline’s cheeks. “He only told me his family his family name, I’m afraid,” she says. “It was Martinez.”  
  
Prince Francis mutters something indecipherable under his breath and then hurries forward, jostling Alasdair’s shoulder with his own in his eagerness to shove Luca’s list into Alasdair’s line of sight. He jabs one long, slender finger to a point about halfway down the sheet.  
  
There, at last, is the dead man’s name. Inscribed in the secretary’s neat, even hand below ‘Clemence Martinez’ is: “Armand Martinez.”  
  
Speaking it aloud drains some of the tension that had been clutching Alasdair’s body so tightly for the past few days, but only for an instant, because a new sort of anxiety soon rises to take its place.  
  
He will, after all, probably have to accompany his captain when she visits Clemence to break the news about what has happened to Armand.

 

 


	8. Chapter 8

“What do we need to do now?” Prince Francis asks as he refills his glass for the third time.  
  
“ _We_ don’t need to do anything,” Alasdair says. “ _I’m_ going to and inform my captain about Mr Martinez. You can… get back to governing, I guess.”  
  
The prince smirks. “And what exactly do you imagine that entails.”  
  
Alasdair can’t imagine that the prince’s days involve anything more demanding than reading the odd report or signing his name a time or two, otherwise he wouldn’t look as put-together and unruffled as he does. If he ever attends local guild meetings, tribunals, trials and the like as Governor Russo, the previous incumbent of his office, used to do over in Eboracum, then Alasdair has never heard word of it.  
  
“Very important business, I’m sure, sir,” Alasdair says, as diplomatically as he feels capable of. “Now, if you’ll excuse me…”  
  
The prince isn’t willing to excuse him at all, though, and manoeuvres himself in front of the drawing room door when Alasdair starts towards it.  
  
“You’re not intending to walk back to Old Town, are you, Corporal?” he asks. He sounds as though he’s unsure that such an undertaking is even possible; sceptical, perhaps, that the human body is capable of such impressive feats of endurance as walking a greater distance than betwixt carriage and front door.  
  
“It’s only two miles; shouldn’t take me more than half an hour if I make sure to stride out all the way.”  
  
Alasdair tries to step around the prince, but he moves along with him, effectively blocking his exit again. Had it not carried the risk of a minimum two year gaol sentence, Alasdair would have attempted to push his way past the man, but the reality of the situation being what it is, he restrains himself to a low and, he hopes, somewhat intimidating growl of: “Sir, I have to leave.”  
  
The prince doesn’t look even remotely threatened. “And I think I should come with you,” he says blithely. “I am the head of the Town Guard, after all, and that behooves me to take an more of an active role in its management. I’ve often contemplated that, of late.”  
  
Alasdair doesn’t believe that for a moment. What _he_ thinks is that the prince has quite enjoyed playing at being a guard for the past few hours – he’s certainly thrown himself into the role with a surprising degree of zeal – and isn’t ready to stop quite yet.  
  
With so little to go on by way of evidence, the guards would probably have been chasing after Armand Martinez’s identity for weeks without the prince’s help, and Alasdair does appreciate it, but he can’t see any point in continuing their association now. By the prince’s own admission, his brief meeting with Mr Martinez hadn’t taught him anything useful about the man.  
  
“As far as I’m aware, that’s a largely ceremonial title,” Alasdair says. “I don’t think anyone actually expects you to do anything in particular because of it. You’re head of the baker’s guild, too, doesn’t mean you have to learn how to make bread.”  
  
“I already know how to bake, Corporal,” the prince says, giving Alasdair another large, toothy smile. “Regretfully, I don’t know as much I should about the guards, considering how vital you are in keeping this town safe.”  
  
On the other hand, whilst Alasdair might not _need_ the prince tagging along, he can see that it might benefit them to cultivate the prince’s current interest in the guards. If he’s sufficiently impressed by their work, then he could be generous enough in his patronage that the budget would stretch to outfitting the sergeants and corporals with the pistols they need. And maybe even breastplates that don’t chafe Alasdair and Angus’ underarms because they’re the cheap kind that only come in three standard sizes, all of them far too small.  
  
“It’s good that you want to learn, sir.” Alasdair tries out a smile of his own. It pulls oddly at his cheeks, and he suspects it possibly doesn’t look quite as convincing as he would like. “I can’t say that any governor has ever paid us much mind. We’ve just had to muddle along as best we can, really. Perhaps you could even turn your strategic mind towards the issue of patrol routes and so on. I’ve often thought they weren’t quite as efficiently planned as they could be.”  
  
The prince blinks at him twice, very slowly. “My strategic mind?”  
  
“You said that you worked on strategy in the last war. In a tent, with maps.”  
  
The prince’s blank look confirms Alasdair’s earlier suspicion that that had been a lie made up on the spur of the moment; one which was, apparently immediately forgotten. “Of course,” he says, after a moment’s silent, vacuous staring. He quickly downs his wine and adds, “Shall we proceed to your guardhouse, then?”  


 

* * *

   
  
  
The carriage the prince calls for to take them to Old Town is far smaller than the one which had conveyed them to the palace, but has just as many unnecessarily twiddly bits of carving adorning it. As a precaution, Alasdair keeps a tight hold on his trousers as he clambers on board.  
  
Inside, it has a deficiency of not only velvet cushions, but also a second bench. The one that is there is narrow, but not so much so that the prince needs to sit as close to Alasdair as he originally arranges himself, their thighs, knees, and shoulders almost touching. Alasdair shuffles a little further away, crossing his legs as he does so to disguise the true intent of the movement. Thankfully, the prince doesn’t see fit to follow him.  
  
As before, the prince is distracted by faffing around with his clothes and hair for the first few minutes of their journey, so Alasdair takes the opportunity to close his eyes and relax for the duration. Without the urgency of his mission to drive him, he can feel the effects of his sleepless night starting to creep back upon him, weighing heavy on his head and limbs.  
  
The gentle rocking of the carriage might well have lulled him into a doze, had the prince not broken the quiet with yet another of his seemingly aimless questions.  
  
“I had been told that the schools in Old Town teach little beyond the very basics of reading and writing. How is it that you learnt Gallian?”  
  
Alasdair would like to think that the prince had discovered a sudden concern for the state of Devan education as well as the guards. It was, after all, pretty woeful, as Alasdair had discovered for himself when Da first took sick and Ma sent him and Caitlin along to their local schoolhouse with the requisite copper. The teacher had seemed far more interested in looking for excuses to use his cane than imparting any knowledge, and they’d never gone back again.  
  
He finds it far more probable that the prince might have a little of Dylan’s abhorrence of silence, and is simply making small talk in order to avoid it.  
  
Alasdair has become habituated enough to feeding his brother’s endless need for conversation that he replies almost on reflex. “I never went to school; my da taught us at home,” he says without bothering to open his eyes. “He was well educated himself; even studied at the university in Durolipons for a few years before the family money finally ran out. He was fluent in Gallian and the old Brittonic tongue, though he didn’t have time to teach us more than a few words of that.”  
  
“So he gave up his profession to teach you?” the prince asks. “That shows a very admirable dedication to his children’s well-being.”  
  
The mere idea of Da having anything like a profession makes Alasdair want to laugh, though he forces the urge down as he doesn’t want the prince to get the impression he’s mocking his father, who remains one of the best men Alasdair has ever known whatever his shortcomings.  
  
“He didn’t have to give up anything. My da was a good man, and a clever one too, but he found it hard to keep a job for very long. Halfway through the workday, he’d get distracted by the colour of the sky or some such, and the next thing Ma knew, he’d be back home searching for his pen and paper so he could write a poem about it before the inspiration left him. Luckily, Ma was the best apothecary in Old Town, so we never wanted for anything, even so.”  
  
“I thought only bards were permitted to write poetry in Britannia,” the prince says. “I’m sure I’d read that somewhere.”  
  
“Somewhere very out of date, I’d guess. That hasn’t been true for the last couple of centuries, at least. Deva might still have a bard, but only because some people feel guilty about letting the old traditions die out entirely. No-one pays him much heed. Even my brother, Dyl, writes poetry. Well, he tries to, in any case.  
  
“Really?” The prince’s voice contains the same note of astonishment that had been evident when he’d called Alasdair’s family ‘fascinating’ before.  
  
It makes Alasdair feel uncomfortably like he’s some sort of fairground attraction, wheeled out for his royal amusement. _Roll up, roll up, and see the amazing educated peasant._  
  
He opens his eyes, and is unsurprised to discover that the prince’s own are resolutely fixed upon his face. The sight stokes the flames of his anger even higher.  
  
“Aye, and he sings, paints and dances, just like you said your cousins do; though I can’t say he does the last two with any great skill. And before you ask,” Alasdair adds, when he sees the prince’s lips begin to part, “yes, I was taught to do all three to the best of my abilities, too. As was Art, and my sister Cait. My little brother, Mikey, had to learn most of it second hand from Dyl, Art, and me, but we did the best we could, regardless.  
  
“Is there anything else you want to marvel over us being able to do, or is that sufficient for now?”  
  
The prince’s cheeks darken, either due to his own rising anger or else embarrassment. Alasdair would have wagered a month’s wages that it was the former, but he does sound slightly chastened when he says once again, “My apologies, Corporal. I hope you don’t feel as though I’m prying, I simply…” He seems to lose the thread of what he had meant to say, his words trailing off slowly and raggedly. After a brief pause wherein he gazes out of the window as though searching for guidance in the streets beyond, he continues with: “Is there a question you’d like to ask _me_? I’d be happy to answer it if I can.”  
  
Though he doesn’t entirely lack curiosity about the man, Alasdair still tells him, “I can’t think of one right now, sir,” because he’d rather just let this particular conversation die its natural death before his temper is tested any further. “If there ever is anything I do want to know about you, though, I’ll definitely bear that in mind.”

 

 


	9. Chapter 9

Mercifully, by the time they roll up at the guardhouse, the afternoon shift has already set out on their patrols and the only person stirring in the cobbled courtyard outside to take note of their arrival is old Mr Hughes, the caretaker. He pauses in his sweeping as they pass by him, but offers them nothing more than his usual gruff words of welcome, so it's probable that he doesn’t recognise the prince at all.  
  
Whenever the Guard Commander visits, Hughes bows so deeply that his forehead practically scrapes on the floor.  
  
The prince does not comment on this failure of due deference; in fact, he seems not to have noticed it at all. His entire attention is fixed on the guardhouse itself, as though it’s an architectural phenomenon that he’s never seen the like of before.  
  
Alasdair can only think that he’d been envisioning some great martial fortress, and is struck by how unassuming the place is. It had once been, Arthur had discovered during the course of his research, the stronghold of one of the Duke of Deva’s favoured knights, but time and a wartime conflagration or two had taken their toll. All that remains of the once-magnificent building is a single squat stone tower, largely unwindowed and crenelated around the apex.  
  
The sole splash of colour in the entire place is provided by the Devan flag – bearing a white wolf energetically couranting across a field of pale blue – which flaps desultorily above the gnarled oak front door. Everything else is grey and completely unadorned.  
  
“Did you expect something more impressive?” Alasdair asks the prince.  
  
“Not at all,” the prince says. “It’s exactly how I imagined it would be. It suits you very well, Corporal.”  
  
“If it does, it’s nothing but a coincidence,” Alasdair says, not entirely sure how to take the remark.  “It has been around a lot longer than I have, after all.”  
  
The prince’s reaction gives no further clues about whether his observation had been meant as an insult or a compliment, mostly because he appears not to have one. Instead, he simply changes the subject, asking, “So, are you going to give me the grand tour?”  
  
Alasdair shrugs. “There’s not much of any interest, really. First floor, you’ve got the kitchen and dining hall, which you’re better off avoiding if you can. They never serve anything worth eating, which is readily apparent from the smell.  
  
“Second floor, there’s the armoury, but the quartermasters won’t stand for anyone poking around in there besides them.  
  
“And then on the third floor, there’s the locker room. Unless you’ve got a burning desire to maybe catch the some of the morning shift changing out of their armour, there’s nothing to see there, either.”  
  
“I can’t say that that prospect holds any appeal right now,” the prince says, smiling slightly. “Perhaps another day.”  
  
“Perhaps, sir,” says Alasdair; dubiously, because he can’t conceive of the locker room _ever_ holding much appeal. Guards work up a good sweat during even uneventful patrols, so the air is usually quite ripe, and in more ways than one. The conversation there tends towards topics far crasser than Alasdair suspects the prince will be used to. “In any case, it’s probably best if we don’t delay in speaking to the captain. The sooner she knows about Armand, the sooner we can break the news to Clemence, and it doesn’t seem right to keep her waiting any longer when there’s no real need for it.”

 

 

* * *

  
  
  
Although Captain Beilschmidt is entitled to a personal aide to fetch, carry, and do other such grunt work for her, she has always insisted that she would rather the money go towards employing an extra guard. Consequently, she polishes her own armour, sharpens her own sword, and opens the door to her fourth floor office when Alasdair raps upon it.  
  
She has obviously taken the time to read up on royal protocol since they met at the Temple that morning, because, after she and Alasdair have traded salutes, she greets the prince with a swift bow and a respectful, “Your Highness.”  
  
The prince gives Alasdair a very pointed look, which Alasdair very pointedly neglects to acknowledge.  
  
“I have a meeting scheduled to begin with the commander in ten minutes, so, I apologise, but I might not be able to speak to you for long,” the captain says as she ushers them into her office. “He’d doubtless be willing to postpone once he knows you’re here, though, Your Highness.”  
  
“That won’t be necessary, Captain.” The register of the prince’s voice has risen, and its taken on a note of oiliness that Alasdair realises he hasn’t heard since they first talked in the palace conservatory. It’s impossible to tell which of the two is his natural tone. Perhaps neither of them are. “We shouldn’t need more than a moment of your time.”  
  
Despite this unasked for declaration of united purpose, the prince immediately drifts towards the captain’s bookshelf to study the leather-bound books of law stored there, leaving Alasdair to give an account of his morning’s work alone.  
  
“I’ve had dealings with Mme. Martinez before,” the captain says after Alasdair has shown her Jansen’s list. “Her oldest son, Henri, has a very expensive gambling habit and never enough funds to sustain it, so he occasionally ends up resorting to petty thievery in order to pay his debts. I arrested him twice myself when I was a sergeant with the Eastgate division.  
  
“I never met Armand, but I believe he works with his mother as a wine merchant. Is that how you know the family, Your Highness?”  
  
“I have all my wine delivered directly from Gallia,” the prince says, barely glancing up from the thick tome he’s perusing. “As I told Corporal Kirkland, I never met M. Martinez before the night of the party. I merely asked my secretary to invite representatives of some of the more prominent Eastgate families, and he produced the list you see there.”  
  
The captain refolds the list and then places it in the centre of her desk, which is otherwise empty apart from a pen neatly aligned with the top edge of her blotter. “Corporal Walsh is investigating this murder alongside you, I believe,” she says. “I’ll send word that he and Corporal Ellis should immediately interrupt their patrol and proceed to Eastgate to inform Mme. Martinez of her son’s death. I’ll join them as soon as I’ve completed my business with the commander.”  
  
Normally, Alasdair wouldn’t envy Angus and Peter their task, but he feels as though it ought to be one he's involved in himself. “I thought you’d want me to be there as well as Angus, sir,” he says. “Seeing as though we both found M. Martinez, and I could reassure her that he’s been well looked after at the Paupers’.”  
  
The captain gives him a long, appraising look. “I understand that, but, to be blunt, I don’t think it’s appropriate for you to delivering such news in your current state. You’re not wearing your uniform, you clearly haven’t shaved, and –“  
  
“I have a spare uniform in my locker,” Alasdair protests, “and a razor.”  
  
“And it’s obvious that you haven’t slept in quite some time,” the captain continues as if she hadn’t been interrupted. “I approve all of the rotas, Corporal, I know you worked the night shift last night. You can’t have been home much more than a couple of hours before Corporal Jones arrived to escort you to the Paupers’.”  
  
“You never mentioned that to me, Corporal.” The prince sounds wounded, as though Alasdair has somehow betrayed him by not complaining about how tired he is. Alasdair would have thought that his inability to keep his eyes open during their carriage ride might have given that fact away, but it could be that the prince’s grasp on cause and effect is a mite shaky. “I wouldn’t have kept you so long at the palace, had I known.”  
  
“I’m fine, sir,” Alasdair tells both of them. “Look, it’ll take me no more than ten minutes to shave and change, ten more to walk to Eastgate, I could be back at the apothecary in no more than –“  
  
“You will take the rest of the day off, Corporal,” the captain says in a severe tone that brooks no disagreement. “I’d say that your work at the palace today constitutes a full shift, and you’ll be compensated for it accordingly. I’ll find someone else to cover your patrol tonight.”  
  
Two silvers for no more than three hours work is so generous that Alasdair would be a fool to argue against it, whatever his misgivings otherwise. He stays silent.  
  
“Good.” The captain nods once before turning to the prince. “Thank you for your assistance, Your Highness. It’s very much appreciated, but I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you for a little more. I need to talk privately to Corporal Kirkland before the commander arrives, so—“  
  
“You need me to make myself scarce,” the prince finishes, making her a swift bow of farewell. His eyes harden when they then land on Alasdair. “I shall be waiting for you by my carriage, Corporal.”  
  
The captain’s gaze lingers on her office door for a long while after the prince has slammed it closed behind him. Eventually, she gives a soft sigh and says, “I don’t suppose he made any mention of why he was so adamant that he had to speak to you, and only you, this morning.”  
  
Thus far, Alasdair can only surmise that the prince has been enacting some subtle punishment against him for his transgressions in the palace conservatory; torture by way of inappropriately personal questions and condescension.  
  
As his captain is still blissfully unaware of said transgressions – and liable to be a lot less forgiving about missed shifts if she weren’t – Alasdair says, “Not a word, sir.”  
  
The captain frowns. “Now, it could be just as he said, that he wanted to talk to the guards and felt more comfortable speaking to you because you’d met before, however briefly. But I can’t quite shake the feeling that there might be more to it than that.”  
  
Alasdair suddenly realises that that same feeling had been nudging at the edges of his mind all day, though it only became fully actualised when the captain acknowledged it first. His sleep deprivation had obviously been affecting him far more than he’d been aware of.  
  
“Do you suspect him of something, Captain?” Alasdair asks.  
  
“No,” the captain says quickly, but then she knows the treason laws just as well as Alasdair, so it's no real indication of her true thoughts on the matter. “Nothing like that. I think… Maybe he subconsciously knows more than he’s aware of, so just make sure you keep your eyes and ears open around him.”

 

 

* * *

 

  
  
As the wall bordering the practice ground at the back of the guardhouse is too high to scale unaided, and the prince’s carriage is blocking the gate to the front, Alasdair is left with no choice but to meet up with the prince after the captain dismisses him.  
  
“I’m taking you back to your home in the carriage,” the prince says before Alasdair has chance to get a word in edgeways, and refuses to be swayed by any of Alasdair’s very reasonable objections against that course of action.  
  
It’s only a ten minute walk to the apothecary. – _They’ll be there even sooner if they take the carriage._  
  
Their street isn’t very wide. – _Can the postmaster’s cart navigate it? Yes? Well, then the carriage is even narrower than that, so they will manage with ease._  
  
Surely the prince has important governing work to do – _Nothing that’s so vital that it can’t be delayed for another half an hour or so._  
  
Doesn’t he realise how humiliating it would be for Alasdair to be deposited at his door by a royal fucking carriage? That he’ll likely be the talk of the Lost Antler for weeks? That all of his neighbours will gossip about it for _months_?    
  
Alasdair doesn’t actually share that with the prince, partly because it’s not only almost as humiliating to admit that he’s concerned about such things, but also because, by that point, he’s lost all will to continue arguing.  
  
He’s sure he could outdo the prince when it comes to stubbornness on a good day, but it’s not a good day: he’s tired, hungry, and the prince’s increasingly strident voice is starting to give him a headache.  
  
Besides, he belatedly recalls, the captain had said that he should watch the prince carefully. It’s an excuse decent enough that he allows himself to capitulate the instant he thinks of it.

 

 


	10. Chapter 10

During their brief journey to the apothecary, Alasdair had harboured some hopes that were, admittedly, a little far-fetched.  
  
As the possibility that the carriage might pass by unnoticed was inconceivable, he had hoped instead that he might be able to disembark from it without attracting any undue attention. Slip out of the door quietly, shield his progress by judicial use of cover, and then nip around to the back door of the apothecary where there would be no-one to mark his passage save Dylan’s dog and the odd stray cat.  
  
The coachman, however, sees fit to stop the carriage right in the centre of the street, leaving both doors exposed to view on all sides, and then announce in a loud, booming voice, “His Royal Highness, Prince Francis of Gallia,” presumably just in case there’s a potential bystander within a quarter mile radius who hasn’t already decided to descend on Ashfield Street for a good, hard gawk.  
  
Alasdair clambers down from the carriage, eschewing the solicitous hand that the coachman extends, and the first thing he sees when he lifts his head is Lukas Bondevik and his daughter, Emilía, pretending to busy themselves with tidying the display of bottles outside their own apothecary.  Even Gilbert Beilschmidt has taken a rare trip down from his garret room in order to stand by his brother’s butcher’s shop and watch the free spectacle that Alasdair’s providing.  
  
Past Gilbert, Alasdair gets the sense that there’s a crowd gathered – judging by the volume of chatter and occasional catcall, it’s quite a sizeable one, at that – just beyond his field of view, but he has no wish to glance that way and check.  
  
The soft sound of the prince’s boots hitting the cobbles beside him dashes Alasdair’s second foolish hope. He grimaces, and then says, “I think I can make it from here on my own.”  
  
Apparently, the prince doesn’t take him at his word, as he answers by reaching out for Alasdair’s elbow, as though he considers him an invalid in need of support to take the few remaining steps to his own front door.  
  
Aware that the rumours that will doubtless be spreading around Old Town like wildfire tonight will take on a far baser nature if allows the prince to touch him, Alasdair side steps the man’s grasping hand, and then hurries around the back of the carriage, whereupon he witnesses the death of the last of his hopes.  
  
His brothers have not slept through the carriage’s rumbling passage, nor were they immune to the desire to get a better look at it afterwards. Dylan, especially, looks to have tumbled practically straight out of his bed and onto the street: his eyes bleary and clothes askew. If he paused to comb his hair at any point, his efforts were in vain, as it has frizzed up to such massive proportions that it looks as though he’s wearing an oddly shaped and particularly ugly hat.  
  
Alasdair knows that his brother would be absolutely mortified for his first meeting with royalty to occur when he’s in such a state of dishabille, so he makes a shooing motion with his hand as he approaches, and hisses, “Get back inside, Dyl.”  
  
Dylan simply stares at him gormlessly, mouth hanging open – wide enough to catch flies, their ma would have told him – and stays rooted to the spot until the prince also rounds the carriage and hoves into view.  
  
Then, Dylan throws himself into the most ridiculously flamboyant bow that Alasdair has ever had the misfortune to witness, complete with widely swept arms and deep bent knee. When he straightens up again, his face is darkly flushed with what should, by rights, be embarrassment over his shameful display, but is more likely due to the blood rushing to his head during his hurried plunge. He’s likely seen such extravagant genuflecting described in one of his awful books about nobles having complicated love affairs, and thinks that he’s comported himself with great dignity.  
  
The prince receives this dubious honour from Dylan with neither the superior smirk Alasdair was expecting, nor even the uproarious laughter most right-thinking person would indulge in, but only a faint smile that has no taint of mockery in it, as far as Alasdair can tell.  
  
“These are your brothers, I presume,” the prince says after they’ve all stared at each other for an awkwardly long stretch of time, spurring Alasdair into the realisation that he’s forgotten simple good manners, never mind royal politesse.  
  
“Aye, this is Dylan,” he says, nodding towards him, “and Michael.”  
  
Michael’s cheeks turn just as red as their brother’s, but Alasdair suspects he’s just experiencing the usual discomfort that afflicts him whenever someone outside their family pays any attention to him. His bow is suitably restrained.  
  
Introductions dealt with, Alasdair’s mind turns towards the conundrum of how best to send the prince on his way again as quickly as possible without risking a night in the stocks as a result. Dylan’s thoughts, it seems, have also taken on a philosophical bent. His eyebrows draw down low, his forehead creases, and the tip of his tongue compulsively swipes back and forth across his lower lip.  
  
With a horrible burst of clarity and insight, Alasdair recognises that there’s a war going on inside his brother’s skull: the forces of his questionable understanding of highborn decorum ranged on one side of the field, the rules of politeness Ma and Da taught them on the other.  
  
_Don’t ask him if he’d like a cup of tea_ , he thinks, desperately willing the words to make the impossible leap from his own head and into Dylan’s. _Don’t ask him if he’d like a cup of tea. Don’t ask him –_  
  
“Would you care to,” Dylan says, his accent shifting to mimic Da’s far more cultured one so closely that it’s eerie, “come inside and share tea with us.”  
  
With the worst over, and even though his heart is hammering hard from it, Alasdair can still cling to the meagre comfort that the prince won’t accept the offer. Likely his delicate stomach would rebel at anything made by a commoner; his pampered skin crawl if forced into contact with cheap furniture.  
  
“I would be delighted,” the prince says, because clearly he doesn’t think he’s made Alasdair suffer sufficiently to suit his tastes quite yet.

 

 

* * *

  
  
  
Although the prince keeps a weather eye on the dusty contents of the shop as he walks through it, as though afraid that one of the bottles might take a sudden leap off its shelf and shed cobwebs all over him, he seats himself at the head of their ancient and scarred kitchen table without a word of complaint about the likelihood of splinters.  
  
Alasdair wouldn’t be surprised if Dylan were already regretting extending his invitation to the prince. His hands are shaking so hard as he pours the tea that he almost drops their last surviving porcelain cup, and he seems incapable of speaking in anything other than monosyllables, which indicates that his nerves are strung so tightly they are near to snapping. It’s a rare enough occurrence that even Alasdair has only observed it happening twice before; most recently following the night Richard had cajoled Dylan into singing at the Lost Antler because the bard was laid up sick in bed with a cold.  
  
Dylan had shivered and sweated all the way through his reluctant performance, got so drunk afterwards that he could barely stand, and then proceeded to scream obscenities at anyone who looked as funnily at him as he deserved and tried to pick an inadvisable fight with Angus.  
  
As picking a fight with the prince would be liable to result in far direr consequences than a slightly sprained shoulder and considerably bruised pride, Alasdair watches his brother warily as he hands the prince his tea, readying himself to jump in between the two of them the instant he sees Dylan’s fingers so much as twitch towards the possibility of forming a fist.  
  
The prince holds the fragile, rose-patterned cup beneath his nose, and then inhales the steam curling up from it, in the same way he’d scented his wine at the palace earlier. His cautious sip is followed by a slightly surprised-looking grin. “This is delicious, Mr Kirkland,” he says. “Did you create the blend yourself?”  
  
The prince’s obvious pleasure unstoppers something within Dylan; something which sets his words tumbling free.  
  
He tells the prince about the herbs he used to make the tea, how they were harvested and prepared. From there, he leaps to his laboratory, the training Ma had given him, and thence to his own tutelage of Michael – who looks horrified to be brought to the prince’s notice again – and the difficulties he’s encountered there.  
  
Throughout this stream of chatter, the prince gives Dylan his full attention, as though he’s never before in his life heard stories so fascinating.  
  
Alasdair loves his brother more than his own life, and knows that he has a whole host of excellent qualities and facets of character that the majority of people they know aren’t even aware of. Even viewed from that most biased of perspectives, however, he is far from being a compelling raconteur.  
  
Alasdair is inclined to believe that the prince’s interest is just as faked as some of his smiles, but he still listens intently and seldom interrupts, at least until Dylan wanders round to the topic of their meagre decorations, the most prominent of which is the now-empty and well-polished bottle Da had won nearly twenty years before.  
  
Dylan’s recounting of their night of Ma’s birthday is accompanied by a very unflattering impression of the disgusted face Alasdair had pulled upon his first taste of wine, which provokes another of those startlingly rough snorts of laughter from the prince.  
  
“If I’d known how traumatising your previous experience of it was,” the prince says to Alasdair once he’s recomposed himself, “I never would have pressed you to sample wine again.”  
  
“Don’t worry about it,” Alasdair tells him. “I survived the experience, and it was nice enough, I suppose.”  
  
The narrowing of the prince’s eyes suggests that he’s deemed Alasdair’s characterisation of his _Eighteen-Whatever_ vintage _Chateau de Something or Other_ as merely ‘nice’, a demonstration of an appalling lack of taste on his part. His subsequent, “I’m glad, Corporal,” sounds nothing less than perfectly contented, however.  


 

* * *

  
  
  
The prince remains rapt for another of Dylan’s long, rambling tales, and then begs their pardon for his having to return to the palace, citing ‘important governing work’ he has kept waiting for far too long. This is said with an accusatory glare at Alasdair, as though he’d begged him to come to the apothecary instead of wishing him gone both before his visit and throughout.  
  
After he’s left, Dylan practically floats around the kitchen as he tidies up the tea things, pink-cheeked and humming happily to himself, as though he’s so crammed full of ebullient feelings that he can’t keep them completely contained.  
  
Alasdair groans to see it, as such behaviour is suspiciously familiar. “Bloody hell, Dyl, don’t tell me you think you’ve fallen in love with the fucking governor. You didn’t even spend twenty minutes with the man; that’s quick work, even for you.”  
  
“Of course I don’t,” Dylan says, sounding far too insulted by the suggestion for a man who had once professed himself in love with someone just because he admired their handwriting. “I’m just happy because I met an actual prince, which I thought I’d never have the opportunity to do.”  
  
He scowls as he washes the saucers, but by the time he’s reached the cups, it’s been replaced by a mild, thoughtful expression. “He is charming, though,” he says, which seems a bit of a wild conjecture to Alasdair, seeing as though the prince had hardly had chance to say more than ten words together at any point during his stay. “And very attractive.”  
  
“I don’t imagine your bard would be pleased to hear you saying that,” Alasdair says, giving his brother’s shoulder a small, warning shove.  
  
“He’s not my bard,” Dylan mutters, and then, a little louder, “And besides, it’s simply an objective statement of fact.”  
  
“I thought attractive was the subjective one,” Alasdair says, not intending to bait his brother – although Dylan clearly believes he is, as he chooses that moment to returns Alasdair’s shove – but because his own understanding of the distinction has always been a little murky.  
  
“All right,” Dylan concedes, “he’s very handsome, then. Don’t you think so?”  
  
There’s nothing inherently displeasing about the prince’s face or figure to Alasdair, but they’re just superficial details. Even after spending several hours in the man’s company, he isn’t sure that he’s seen a single, true glimpse of what might lie beneath. It’s almost as if he’s entirely composed of surface, and Alasdair can’t conceive of how that might attract anyone’s particular interest.  
  
“I guess,” he says. “But I certainly don’t think he’s attractive.”

 

 


	11. Chapter 11

“You’ll be glad to know,” Dylan says when he returns from the Lost Antler’s bar, “that most people think that you must be doing some sort of important guard work for the governor. Old Jack Ennis even insisted on paying for your pint to congratulate you on your ‘promotion’.”  
  
The tankard that Dylan places onto the table is filled almost to overflowing with what appears to be one of Richard’s more expensive beers, judging by its rich hoppy smell and thick, creamy head of foam.  
  
It’s a far finer brew than the watered-down horse piss slop which is Alasdair’s usual drink of financial necessity, if not choice, and a tempting sight. Not quite tempting enough, however, to serve as the distraction he suspects Dylan had intended it to be.  
  
“Most?” he asks.  
  
“I did overhear a couple of conversations whilst I was waiting to be served where…” Dylan swallows hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing nervously. “Where alternative theories were being shared. And…”  
  
“And…?” Alasdair asks, when his brother flounders into uneasy silence.  
  
Dylan gives him a pained look. “You’re not going to like it, Aly.”  
  
“Aye, I probably won’t, but I think I have a right to know what people are saying about me behind my back, don’t you?”  
  
“They were saying that it’s obvious now why you’ve never started courting anyone,” Dylan says in a single breath, rattling the words out so quickly that it’s difficult to tell were one ends and another begins. “That you’ve obviously got a taste for… for finer things than you’ll find round here.”  
  
Alasdair should have known that simply avoiding being touched by the prince wouldn’t spare him from becoming the subject of the more salacious kind of rumours he’d feared might spring up given his unorthodox return home that afternoon. Most of Old Town seem to spend half their lives with their minds in the gutter, after all.  
  
As do a large portion of the higher born, if the gossip pages that appeared in all but the most dryly conservative periodicals were anything to go by, so the prince could hardly claim ignorance that his thoughtless ‘good deed’ might lead to exactly this outcome.  
  
It turns out Alasdair’s opinion of the man can indeed fall lower, even in absentia, and he downgrades it another couple of notches accordingly.  
  
“So, they reckon I’m bedding the fucking governor.” He grabs hold of the tankard and takes a long, consolatory swig of beer. “I knew I shouldn’t have let you persuade me to come out tonight, Dyl. I’m encouraging them to keep talking about it just by being here, aren’t I? I should have kept my head down for a while; given it chance to blow over before showing my face again.”  
  
“They were far more disparaging about the governor’s tastes,” Dylan says as takes his seat beside Alasdair, “if that makes you feel any better.”  
  
Alasdair looks askance at him, but Dylan’s round face radiates nothing but innocence and a guileless wish to please.  
  
“No, it really doesn’t,” he says. “So you’re telling me that my own fucking neighbours don’t think I’m good enough for—"  
  
“I didn’t mean it like that,” Dylan breaks in hurriedly, his cheeks a glowing crimson. “They were speculating about the prince's… Saying that he might be the type of man who…” He sighs, and then shakes his head. “Look, we shouldn’t be dignifying any of this by giving it the time of day. Let’s just try and forget about it, shall we? Talk about more important things.”  
  
“Like what?” asks Alasdair, who thinks it’s all pretty bloody vital, at least where his reputation is concerned.  
  
“Like how the murder investigation’s going,” Dylan says. “You mentioned that you discovered the victim’s name, but you never told me how you did or what it was.”  
  
Alasdair shouldn’t really tell him _now_ , either, as such information is, strictly speaking, guard business, and not for the ears of citizens. But Dylan would never betray a confidence – Alasdair believes in his integrity in the same unquestioning way as he believes the sun will rise again tomorrow – and Alasdair’s found it useful to discuss the more complex of his cases with him in the past. His brother might not be in possession of the most analytical of minds, but he’s still often be able to see connections from the outside that Alasdair had missed due to being too deeply mired in the details.  
  
Besides, Dylan’s right; the murder is far more important.  
  
So Alasdair tells him about his visit to the palace that morning, his meetings with the prince’s family and Jansen’s list, and when he’s done, Dylan gives him a fuller account of his tests on Armand Martinez’s blood.  
  
“The results don’t seem to make any sense,” he concludes. “I’ve identified a few substances I’m familiar with that he must have come into contact with – an emetic, a couple of diuretics – but they’re not ones that I’d consider _dangerous_ in any way. I haven’t been able to trace any poisons, but I’m not out of ideas quite yet. Do you think…?” He pauses for a moment, frowning, and then says in an undertone, “Aly, I don’t suppose you recognise that bloke by the door, do you? He’s been watching you for a while now.”  
      
Alasdair turns to look at the spot that the nod of his brother’s head indicates, and locks eyes with a tall, rangy man with dark, messy hair and a face that is instantly familiar to him.  
  
A man who he’d last seen ten years ago, vaulting over a wall into the tannery’s crate-strewn maze of a yard with a stolen purse and ring in his pocket.  
  
The fucking thief who’d got away from him on his first week as a guard.  
  
A sudden, instinctive bolt of rage surges through him, propelling him out of his chair before he’s even aware of having started moving. His hand drops, equally instinctively, to where the pommel of his sword would normally sit.  
  
“You,” he growls, and he can see an answering recognition kindling in the thief’s eyes.  
  
He bolts.  
  
Alasdair can hear Dylan and what sounds like Angus calling his name, but their voices are so very faint compared to the thrum of anger and the slow, deliberate thump of his own heartbeat resounding in his ears that they’re easy enough to ignore.  
  
He follows.  
  
By the time Alasdair has pushed past the taproom crowds and through the Antler’s unwieldy front door, the thief is already halfway up the street outside. He’s quick, his feet seeming to skim over the ground almost without touching it, and agile as he jumps over ruts and potholes with barely a break in his stride.  
  
Alasdair is neither quick nor agile, but he has plenty of stamina and knows the twists and turns of Old Town’s streets with an intimacy born from hours upon countless boring hours of patrols.  
  
He sets off in a steady jog, keeping his head up and his eyes carefully fixed on his target. When the thief reaches the top of Heather Street and turns onto Common Road, Alasdair makes a swift right onto Hope Lane, left onto Greenacres, and emerges just behind the bastard as he sprints past Anderson’s millinery shop.  
  
The thief glances back at him, eyes shocked wide, and then suddenly veers towards the small alleyway between Anderson’s shop and the dressmaker’s beside it. He vaults over the rain barrel that blocks most of its width, and then, with a nimble weave of his body, kicks out with his trailing leg.  
  
The barrel teeters for an instant and then smashes down against the cobbles, disintegrating into a small, rolling tide of cloudy water and thick splinters of wood. Alasdair manages to jump aside quickly enough to avoid getting hit by any of the debris, but lands awkwardly, jarring his back and sending the muscles around his old injury into a spasm that momentarily takes his breath away.  
  
He grinds his knuckles into the gnarled scar at the base of his spine until the pain eases and his vision starts to uncloud. It clears just in time for him to see the thief sliding beneath a low-slung delivery carriage parked blocking the other end of the alleyway; a gap far too narrow to admit Alasdair’s shoulders, never mind the rest of him.  
  
Beyond the carriage lies Ramsden Street, which is narrow, winding, and, most importantly, has only one exit.  
  
“Sandown Road,” Alasdair mutters to himself as he breaks into a trot again.  
  
Each stride jolts his back, each jolt aches, and Alasdair’s lungs feel blood-warm and heavy in his chest. Despite the cool night and his thin shirt, sweat begins to prickle along his hairline and top lip.  
  
When he eventually hauls himself around the corner of Frasergate and onto Sandown Road, the thief has neared the high wall of the tannery over which Alasdair had lost him before.  
  
Losing him again seems inevitable until he catches sight of Corporals Roberts and Jones on their patrol, strolling out of Old School Court and almost within spitting distance of the hells-damned thief.  
  
Corporal Jones and her gods-blessed pistol.  
  
“Jones!” Alasdair calls out as loudly as his tight chest will allow him. “Stop him, for fuck’s sake!”  
   
Corporal Jones doesn’t even look his way to question – guards trust other guards without hesitation; they wouldn’t last long in their line of work if they didn’t – and draws her pistol immediately. She shouts out a warning when she trains it at the thief’s rapidly retreating back, but the thief ignores her in favour of launching himself at a pile of old meat crates stacked up against the base of the tannery wall.  
  
After all the effortless poise he’s otherwise displayed in his flight from the long overdue justice he deserves, he finally fumbles a step with escape in sight.  
  
He slips, and then comes crashing down, face-first, as Corporal Jones pulls the trigger on her pistol. It’s a warning shot, aimed wide, but the thief’s limbs flail desperately as he falls, and it manages to catch him glancingly on his shoulder, nevertheless.  
  
The thief’s long legs tangle together as he struggles to stand up again, and it buys Alasdair just enough time to jog down the street and catch up with him.  
  
Their gazes meet again when the thief finally gets to his feet, and the man has the nerve to grin, as though they’re a couple of lads who’ve been playing a game of fucking tag this whole time.  
  
“You run faster now.” The thief holds up his fists, clenched and trembling. “Been practicing?”  
   
Alasdair rolls his eyes at the weak attempt at bravado. “You’re shot. Do you really think you can fight your way out of here?”  
   
Though his face is bruised from his fall, and the wound on his shoulder is soaking his coat through with blood, the thief still takes a clumsy swing at Alasdair when he draws close enough to reach out to try and grab hold of him.  
  
Although the punch connects so weakly that Alasdair scarcely feels it, he reflexively throws one of his own in retaliation. It lands square on the thief’s chin, but the man rolls his neck with the easy grace of a seasoned fighter, cushioning the blow sufficiently that it doesn’t drop him.  
  
He shifts his weight and weaves around Alasdair’s second punch, but rebalances himself too sluggishly to avoid the third. It strikes hard against his temple, and fells him like a tree.  
  
“Fuck,” Alasdair says, a little breathlessly, as he moves to stand over the thief’s crumpled body. “You are one slippery piece of shit.”  
   
The thief turns his head, spits out a mouthful of mingled blood and froth, and then starts to laugh. “That was great fun,” he says.

 

 

* * *

  
  
  
Alasdair could, by rights, leave the writing of his report until his shift tomorrow afternoon, but experience has taught him that, whilst he might not forget any of the details of his arrest if he delays, he will certainly find reasons to keep putting off completing it until the captain begins to seriously threaten to dock his pay.  
  
So, whilst Corporals Jones and Roberts take their new prisoner off to one of the interview rooms in the cellars for questioning, Alasdair retreats to an empty office on the fourth floor with a sheaf of paper.  
  
Even with the best will in the world, report writing is a slow process – one hindered in part by the awkwardly precise and unnatural terminology required, but mostly by Alasdair’s constantly wandering attention – and almost an hour later, he is still laboriously chronicling the series of streets he’d taken during the chase.  
  
Before he can make a start on a punch by punch account of his fight with the thief, the office door is opened after a perfunctory knock and Corporal Jones pokes her head inside.  
  
“The captain wants to speak to us,” she says. When he doesn’t immediately fling his pen aside, she adds with some urgency, “Immediately. That thief we caught was carrying something she said you’re going to want to see.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

The captain glances up at Alasdair and Corporal Jones when they enter her office, but only for long enough to acknowledge their salutes. Her eyes then drop back to a leather wallet lying on the desk in front of her, and she soon frowns once more.  
  
Angus is standing in the corner of the room, stiff-backed and unmoving. Every so often, his fingers will twitch a little, his eyes dart towards the captain, but otherwise he might as well be carved from stone.  
  
Alasdair nods at him in greeting. Angus does not return it.  
  
“The man you arrested is Niall Walsh. Corporal Walsh’s older brother,” the captain says eventually, to the accompaniment of an almost imperceptible wince from Angus. “In his pockets, he had a few coins – all counterfeit – and this.”  
  
She pushes the wallet across the desk so Alasdair and Corporal Jones can examine it more closely.  
  
It’s an expensive-looking thing, made of well stitched and polished leather. There’s a small, gold-plated metal lozenge attached to the front of it, bearing an embossed ship with a bunch of grapes decorating its sail.  
  
The captain traces the ship’s outlines with the tip of one finger. “This is the Martinez family crest,” she says.  
  
“Then it’s Armand’s wallet.” Alasdair is careful not to look at Angus as he says the words. “Did Walsh happen to say why he had it on him?”  
  
“Apparently, he found it,” the captain says.  
  
“On Armand’s body?”  
  
“No, just lying on the street.”  
  
Corporal Jones snorts loudly. “ _Under_ the streets, more likely,” she says. “I’ve seen his record, sir. He’s a habitual thief; arrested twelve times before he fell off the face of the earth ten years ago.”  
  
“Yes, I think it would be worth making some inquiries in the Belowstreets. I have…” The captain’s mouth tenses slightly. “I have a contact I can approach to help us there, so I’ll pursue that lead myself.”  
  
Honestly, Alasdair’s relieved to hear that. The Belowstreets are a labyrinth of interconnected caverns, abandoned cellars, and sewers in which Deva’s seedier underbelly thrives, far beneath the notice of her more law-abiding inhabitants. Rumours abound that an illicit dragonweed den can be found there; a black market dealing in smuggled weapons and stolen goods; even the headquarters of a group of murderers for hire.  
  
On the rare occasions that guards' patrols or investigations lead them Belowstreets, they either find nothing more than dust and cobwebs or else they don’t return at all.  
  
“So, we don’t think he had anything to do with the actual murder, then?” Alasdair asks.  
  
“He would never get involved in something like that,” Angus breaks in. “He’s not a violent man.”  
  
Alasdair chuckles ruefully. “He _punched_ me, Gus.”  
  
“I never said he can’t take care of himself if he’s backed into a corner.” Angus folds his meaty arms emphatically over his broad chest. “He doesn’t provoke fights, though. He just has very… flexible ideas about ownership.”  
  
“Besides,” the captain says, “Mr Walsh didn’t even arrive in Deva until after M. Martinez’s murder. Corporal Roberts has already talked to the captain of the ship he travelled on, who confirmed his story.”  
  
The captain reaches towards the wallet, hesitates, and then very quickly flicks it open as though wanting to perform the action before her better judgement catches up with her hands. “I had thought the wallet was empty, but I was inspecting it more closely whilst I waited for Corporal Walsh to join me, and I found this balled up right at the bottom of it.” She extracts a tiny piece of paper, but then closes her hand around it so it remains hidden from view. “Now – Corporal Walsh, Corporal Kirkland – I’m showing you this only because you’re so closely involved with the rest of this investigation, but Corporal Jones will be following up on it. I _do not_ want you two getting involved.”  
  
She hands Alasdair the paper slip, and he unfolds it carefully. There’s a single word written on it in a loose and looping hand: _Llewellyn_.  
  
“It’s a very unpopular name nowadays,” the captain says, watching Alasdair’s face closely. “In fact, I personally know of only one man in the whole of Old Town called that.”  
  
Alasdair’s mind turns first towards Angus and then, wretchedly, to Dylan.  
  
“The bard,” he breathes out slowly, crumpling the paper against his palm.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many thanks to nekoian for writing the majority of this part first from Niall's POV. It made writing the action parts a lot easier, though I still struggled with them (for months) as I do not have anywhere near the same level of aptitude for them!


	12. Chapter 12

The guardhouse training yard is empty save for Corporal Jones, who is swinging away at the training dummy with such ferocious intensity that Alasdair concludes it must have paid her a grievous personal insult.  
  
“Now, I know you’re keen, Jones,” Alasdair says as he cautiously approaches her, “but turning up to work nine hours early is a little _too_ eager, even for you. Aren’t you on night patrol again today?”  
  
Jones lands one last blow against the dummy’s blank wooden face, and swivels on her heel to face him. Her complexion is pallid, making the red cast of her bloodshot eyes seem even more vivid in comparison.  
  
Alasdair groans. “You haven’t been home since _last_ night’s patrol yet, have you?”  
  
“Roberts and I spent most of the night trying to get something useful out of that Walsh guy,” Jones says with a scowl. “No luck there. He’s still sticking to that ridiculous story about just tripping over Martinez’s wallet practically the second he disembarked from his ship. And I’ve had no luck with the bard, either. I spent all morning chasing after him, but he managed to stay one step ahead of me the whole time. Not the behaviour of an innocent man, if you ask me.”  
  
Alasdair isn’t convinced that it’s the behaviour of a _guilty_ man, either. The bard seems to spend all his days flitting from place to place; dispensing unasked for nuggets of ancient lore, interfering in other people’s affairs, and, one would presume, occasionally singing at largely undeserving members of the public.  
  
Such pastoral work was once an essential bardly duty, and despite the fact that most folks nowadays are perfectly capable of going about their daily lives without once feeling it necessary to take into account what some long-dead king or bard might have had to say about their desire to name their baby Kevin or some such, Llewellyn doggedly continues it even in the face of almost universal apathy.  
  
His diligence may well be influenced by the dilapidated state of the mouldering Bard’s Hall. Alasdair wouldn’t want to spend any longer inside it than he had to if he were in Llewellyn’s place.  
  
“Well, you’re more likely to catch him tonight, in any case,” Alasdair says. “He sings at the Lost Antler most evenings, and always sleeps at the Hall, as far as I know. You should go home till then; get some sleep yourself.”  
  
“I tried to sleep earlier, on one of the cots in the locker room, but I couldn’t keep my eyes closed. I still feel so full of energy.” As if in demonstration, Jones starts bouncing on the balls of her feet. “I just want to keep moving.”  
  
Alasdair looks at her appraisingly. Although she’s not overly tall, and is as thin as a lath, he has heard tell that she’s surprisingly strong for her size. The new gaping smile she’s just hacked out of the dummy’s hitherto featureless head seems to bear out that particular rumour.  
  
“I’ll spar with you a while, if you like,” he says. “That might help wear you out a little.”  
  
“If I’d _like_?” Jones breaks out a wide, dazzling grin that brightens her face a great deal. “I’ve wanted to spar with you for _months_. Everyone tells me that you’re one of the best sword fighters in the guards.”  
  
“I wouldn’t say that,” says Alasdair, but only because he’d feel too much of a boastful twat to admit otherwise.  
  
“Even _Sergeant Lewis_ says it, and he can’t _stand_ you,” Jones says, which serves to prove something about the man, though Alasdair’s feelings are so confused regarding the information, he can’t work out quite _what_. “I can give you some lessons with the pistol later, if you want. To pay you back.”  
  
“I don’t need repayment,” Alasdair says, even though the offer is tempting. He’s a lousy shot. “We’re comrades in arms, aren’t we? Of a sort, anyway. We should be helping each other to get better at avoiding being killed in the line of duty if we can.  
  
“Besides, my back’s aching after tangling with Walsh yesterday, and I need to stretch my muscles out. I came early for my own shift so I could get some practice in, too, you know.”  
  
Jones gives Alasdair a dubious look, which makes him chuckle, recognising himself as a teenager in her particular shade of disbelief. “When you get to my advanced age, you might find you can’t bounce back from a pummelling the way you used to, as well,” he says. “Right, just give me a couple of minutes to warm up my old bones and we’ll get started, okay?”  
  
“Okay,” Jones agrees, and then retreats a few paces away to give him some swinging room. She settles herself down, cross-legged, on the dusty flagstones, and then fixes her eyes on Alasdair avidly.  
  
At first, her attention makes him feel incredibly self-conscious, because he hates having to perform in front of an audience – he used to break into a cold sweat whenever he was cajoled into taking part in one of the ridiculous dramatic readings Da loved to inflict on him and his siblings, and they’d only ever been in front of Da and Ma – but as soon as he draws the blunted practice sword from its scabbard, the unsettled feeling vanishes in an instant.  
  
He’s always felt calmer when he’s holding a blade; more centred and balanced, even when it’s one as badly weighted and ill-suited as this.  
  
He starts with some strengthening exercises, slowly lowering the sword down to the ground and then back up to his shoulder again. His back protests the movement at first, but it gets a little easier with every repetition, until eventually stops pulling against him, at all.  
  
Next come stretches, then finally feinting thrusts. When he’s finished, his entire body has warmed though, thrumming with so much restless energy that he too starts bouncing on his feet, just to burn some of it away.  
  
“Are you ready?” he asks, glancing towards Corporal Jones. She looks distinctly less impressed than she had before he began his exercises, but still jumps to her feet eagerly enough.  
  
She moves to stand in front of him, her arms braced and her feet carefully set a shoulder-width apart; a position Alasdair recognises from a woodcut in the book on military training he and Caitlin had bought as children. The one they eventually decided focused far too much on rules to the detriment of actually staying alive during a fight, and thereafter chose to ignore pretty much in its entirety.  
  
Alasdair springs forward, and taps the point of his own sword against Jones’ shoulder.  
  
“Hey!” Her eyes widen in shock. “We haven’t started yet!”  
  
Alasdair loops around to land another soft hit against her other shoulder. “Stances are all well and good if you’re fucking duelling or something,” he says, “but if you’re fighting – even sparring – you’ve got to keep moving constantly.”  
  
Jones’ nods curtly, tightening her hand around her sword’s grip. She dips her hip too soon, telegraphing her next move as clearly as if she’d shouted it out ahead of time, and Alasdair’s counter-strike catches it mid-swing. And she _is_ strong – the jolt reverberates down Alasdair’s arm hard enough that it stings his shoulder – but he finds he can use it against her with a well-timed twist of his wrist which redirects the force back down the length of Jones’ sword.

The sudden push catches her off-balance, she staggers her next step, and the consequent slight drop of her arm allows Alasdair to disengage. He feints left but darts right, swiping his sword across the back of Jones’ legs as he manoeuvres himself around her.  
  
“If you were this quick yesterday,” Jones says, “you might have caught Walsh before he made it to the tannery.”  
  
“Aye, taunts are good, too.” Alasdair laughs. “You’ve got to use anything you might be able to turn to your advantage.”  
  
Jones uses his advice immediately, lunging for him before he finishes speaking. Her next two blows are weak, easily avoided, but by the third she’s got her wind back sufficiently that it likely would have knocked him out cold if he hadn’t been able to duck beneath it at just the right moment.  
  
They weave around each other, trading parries and ripostes back and forth, until Jones’ face is purpling from exertion. Distantly, Alasdair is aware of sweat trickling down his own face, the tired weight of his arms and legs, but they both seem far away.  
  
He always feels like this when he fights with a sword: light and free. It’s almost as though he’s temporarily inhabiting some body other than his own; one which isn’t too bulky and too slow, and with feet which aren’t hopelessly clumsy.  
  
Jones’ feet, however, are growing increasingly more so. She catches one first against the corner of a flagstone, then the other against the back of her own heel, and that finally sends her crashing to the ground, helped on her way by the flat of Alasdair’s blade, pressed against her neck.  
  
He quickly nudges her onto her back with the toe of his boot, and then rests the tip of his sword against the hollow of her throat.  
  
“Do you yield?” he asks.  
  
“I yield,” Jones says, her voice wavering as she takes in huge, gusting gasps of breath.  
  
“It was a good fight,” Alasdair concedes, reaching down to haul her to her feet again. “Though, if you—"  
  
He’s interrupted by faint clapping, and when he turns, searching for the source of the noise, he catches sight of the prince standing halfway up the flight of stairs leading to the guardhouse’s back door, palms pressed together and smiling broadly.  
  
Even though he hadn’t thought he’d run into the man again any time soon, somehow Alasdair isn’t taken aback to see him there. Given his previous behaviour, it would come as no surprise to discover that he’s the sort of person who delights in turning up exactly where he’s least welcome, just as he took pleasure in a great deal of things that Alasdair found equally irritating the day before.  
  
And _that_ possibility's irritating enough that Alasdair doesn’t bother to check himself before going with his first instinct and calling out, “What the hell are you doing here?”  
  
The prince laughs; a high, tinkling sound that grates against Alasdair’s already raw nerves. “That’s no way to talk to either a governor or a prince, Corporal Kirkland,” he says as he begins to descend the stairs. “Don’t make me regret yesterday’s decision to not have you flogged for insubordination.”  
  
He jumps down the last two steps, and then wanders towards Alasdair and Corporal Jones with an insouciance better suited to taking a leisurely turn around his overly manicured gardens.  
  
As he draws near, Corporal Jones snaps out a smart salute and an even smarter, “Your Highness.”  
  
Alasdair wonders whether she was already aware of that particular nuance of royal protocol, or that the captain had given the rest of the guards a debriefing on proper address, to prepare them just in case the prince ever did decide to come and stick his pointy nose in guard business again.  
  
The prince nods at Jones indulgently, and then gives Alasdair a very expectant look.  
  
Alasdair holds out as long as he can, but the chain of command is a weighty one, and it eventually crushes his defences into rubble despite his best efforts. “Sir,” he says grudgingly.  
  
In a final, useless act of defiance, his salute is far sloppier than Jones’.  
  
The prince looks gratified by it anyway, which makes it feel even pettier. “Don’t let me keep you from your training,” he says. “Please, carry on. Watching you has been very educational so far.”  
  
“Oh, we’re finished now, Your Highness,” Jones says before Alasdair has chance to reply. She tilts her head towards Alasdair and adds, “Thanks, Kirkland. I think I’m knackered enough to sleep now.”  
  
Then, very deliberately and for no reason Alasdair can easily ascertain, she winks at him before scampering away towards the guardhouse at a speed which makes her claim of being knackered somewhat suspect.  
  
Alasdair watches her go until she disappears from view, and then reluctantly turns to the prince.  
  
His hair is pulled back in a tight martial queue, tied with a length of sombre grey ribbon, and he appears to have shrunk a couple of inches; the top of his head barely reaching the level of Alasdair’s nose instead of his eyes as it had the previous day. Glancing down, Alasdair notes that his boots are plain riding ones, lacking the high elevation in the heel.  
  
When he looks back up again, he finds the prince studying him with the same intensity he had subjected him to during their carriage rides.  
  
Alasdair guesses that he must have once again demonstrated a skill that the prince patronisingly considers a marvellous achievement for someone of his lowly standing; a suspicion that is soon confirmed when the prince remarks, “You’re very proficient with a sword, Corporal. Did your—"  
  
“No, my da didn’t teach me,” Alasdair says, knowing now how that sentence is bound to end and having no wish to hear it. “My sister and I taught ourselves; out of a book at first, and then we just sort of made the rest up as we went along. I’m sure neither of us uses the proper techniques or anything, but we’ve managed to keep our heads on our shoulders and our guts in our bellies, regardless.”  
  
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone untutored fight so well before,” the prince says. He doesn’t seem annoyed by having been pre-empted, but instead even more intrigued. “I’d relish the chance to test my mettle against you some day.”  
  
“That doesn’t seem as though it’d be very fair, sir,” Alasdair says. He expects the prince to look puzzled, and he doesn’t disappoint.  
  
“I was taught swordplay by the finest Roman masters of the art," the prince says, frowning. "You might have some talent, but I assure you I could more than hold my own against you.”  
  
He should probably start writing his lies down, as he clearly can’t keep track of them otherwise. Alasdair’s twice caught him out on this one with no effort at all on his part.  
  
“It’s a shame that they didn’t take advantage of that skill during the last war,” he says blandly.  
  
“How so?” the prince says, raising one fine, sculpted eyebrow.  
  
“Well, they stuck you with those maps, sir, when it turns out you should have been out on the battlefield fighting, after all.” He shakes his head with mock sadness. “Seems like such a waste.”  
  
The prince’s mouth twists angrily, but the rest of his expression doesn’t shift to match it. His blue eyes spark with good humour. “You have an unforgivingly good memory, Corporal.”  
  
“Aye, I do.” Alasdair finds himself grinning without meaning to.  
  
“I expect it’s a boon in your line of work.”  
  
“It is.” With the conversation’s turn, Alasdair realises that perfect opportunity to cut it short. One which he readily takes. “And, speaking of my line of work, I really should get moving. I’m on the afternoon shift, and I could do with a wash and a bite to eat before it starts."  
  
“Of course,” the prince says, flicking his hand towards the guardhouse in what appears to be a gesture of dismissal. “Please, go ahead.”  
  
It _appears_ to be a dismissal, but when Alasdair starts walking away, the prince immediately falls into step with him.  
  
“I was on my way to speak to your captain before you distracted me,” the prince says; chidingly, as though Alasdair had deliberately set out to lead him astray. “I understand new evidence has been found in the Martinez case.”  
  
Alasdair wonders if he’d heard the news from the captain herself, or if he has some other source of information secreted away in the guardhouse. Remembering his captain’s request to keep his eyes and ears open around the prince, Alasdair files that question away to share with her later.  
  
He makes a noncommittal noise. “You’d be better off asking the captain about that, sir. I can’t say I know much about it.”  
  
Though the prince doesn’t look particularly convinced by that, it doesn’t dispute it, either. In fact, he holds his peace completely as they enter and then move through the guardhouse, and it falls to Alasdair to eventually break their silence when they reach the locker room on the third floor.  
  
“Well,” he says, resting his hand, palm flat, against the rough wood of the door. “This is me, then. I presume you remember your way to the captain’s office from here.”  
  
The prince’s eyes stray towards the stairs which lead up to the fourth floor, but they are quick to return to Alasdair’s face. “I do,” he says slowly, “but I think I might prefer to take that tour we talked about yesterday now.”  
  
“Really?” Alasdair asks incredulously, still not quite able to grasp the appeal of the idea. The guardhouse really has very little to recommend it.  
  
The prince’s gaze remains steady for a beat or two longer, and then he sighs and casts it aside. “No, you’re right. I should continue on –“  
  
Pounding footsteps thundering up the stairwell from the armoury drown out the prince’s next word, and then Corporal Ellis bursts suddenly into view.

“Thank the gods you’re here, Kirkland,” he says, flushed and breathing raggedly. “Report’s just come in; the morning patrols have found another body.”

 

 


	13. Chapter 13

By the time Alasdair re-emerges from the locker room – somewhat perfunctorily scrubbed and hastily buckled into his breastplate and sword belt – Ellis has gone again but the prince remains, loitering just next to the door where he’s impossible to avoid.  
  
“I’ve sent the other corporal out to speak to my coachman,” the prince says, oozing forward to attach himself uncomfortably close to Alasdair’s side. “He’ll be able to take you both to the scene of the crime in moments.”  
  
Alasdair leans away from him as best he can without losing his balance. “Ellis and I are perfectly capable of walking,” he says.  
  
“ _Corporal Ellis_ seemed grateful for my offer. He said that the request for more guards was an urgent one, and the scene is a fair distance away.”  
  
Ellis is one of the most ingratiatingly deferent men Alasdair has ever known. If the prince had decided to give him a swift kick to the seat instead, he probably would have thanked him for the privilege of having royal boot leather applied to his arse.  
  
“Even so, I’m sure we can be spared for the few extra minutes the carriage would buy us,” Alasdair counters. “And besides, that great, shiny monstrosity you ride in draws crowds all by itself. We really don’t need that sort of chaos at a murder scene.”  
  
“I’m not using either of my official carriages today, just a small barouche; practically indistinguishable from others I’ve seen driving through Old Town, never mind Eastgate or Highgate.” The prince rakes his fingers back through his slicked back hair, from hairline to crown, in what looks to be a frustrated gesture; stiff-jointed and brutal. “Corporal, I am simply trying to help. I know you likely think I’m interfering, but joining you in your investigation yesterday was the only time I’ve felt as though I was doing something materially useful for this town since I was posted here.  
  
“Though if you do think I will be hindering you more than helping, I will of course rescind the offer.”  
  
Alasdair imagines that if he was in the prince’s place – rattling around in that over-decorated rabbit warren of a palace with little else to do than host the odd ball and sign important documents that other people had drawn up – he too would leap on the chance to get involved with just about anything that might break the sheer monotony of it. For the first time, he experiences a small, unexpected sense of kindred feeling with the man.  
  
“Naw,” he says, as that feeling crests. “You and Ellis are probably right. We should take the carriage. There’s no point in having advantages if we don’t take them, I guess.”  


 

* * *

 

 

Alasdair sours on the idea of the carriage the instant it becomes clear that the prince hadn’t been offering the sole use of it, but simply a lift alongside him to a place he’d obviously set his sights on going already, whatever Alasdair had ultimately decided.  
  
“I’m not sure that it’s a good idea for you to come along, sir,” he says, hanging back as the coachman – today dressed in a nondescript grey jacket and trousers – hurries forward to open the barouche’s door for the prince. “Murder scenes aren’t exactly for the faint-hearted.”  
  
“As you so cleverly deduced, Corporal, I took a more active part in the war than I might initially have suggested. I’m not squeamish around dead bodies.”  
  
The prince’s expression is aloof, his voice smooth – almost inflectionless – once more, and Alasdair begins to suspect that his harried way of acting and speaking outside the locker room might well have been another one of his performances after all; the story he’d shared one carefully calculated to invoke sympathy.  
  
Alasdair feels a fool for having fallen for one of the prince’s ruses at last, and even more so for forgetting to be suspicious of him as the captain had asked him to be.  
  
If he isn’t compelled to try and insert himself into their investigations because of a previously thwarted desire to perform his civic duty, then why else? Why is he so interested in these murders?  
  
“That might be so,” Alasdair says, “but we’ll work better without you getting underfoot, regardless. As I said before, we get too many gawpers as it is whenever a corpse turns up. I don’t think the guards at the scene would be best pleased if Ellis and I turn up there with one of our own in tow.”  
  
Beside him, Ellis gasps at his inclusion in the conversation and begins wringing his hands so hard it’s a wonder they don’t detach themselves and drop away from his wrists, but the prince doesn’t even pause to glance his way.  
  
“I have no intention of _gawping_ ,” he says, his eyes narrowing. “I will remain nearby in case there’s any aid it’s in my power to provide, but otherwise there’ll be no danger of my ‘getting underfoot’.”  
  
“But—"  
  
“But nothing, Corporal,” the prince snaps, making a curt, slicing motion with one hand. “Notwithstanding your claims of a good memory, you seem to constantly forget that I’m your superior. As you so rightly pointed out, I am head of the Town Guard, and I would be well within my rights to _demand_ that I accompany you.  
  
“I have no wish to start issuing you commands, but if you persist in arguing with me, I will.”  
  
The small spark of warmer regard, so recently lit in Alasdair’s breast, splutters and dies. For all the prince’s attempts at bonhomie, once his surface is scratched, he’s apparently just like every other noble; willing to throw his weight around – pull rank and title – as soon as it looks as though he might not get his own way for once.  
  
It makes Alasdair want to keep on arguing, mostly out of spite, but he holds his tongue because he knows it could be disastrous for him to do otherwise now that the spectre of ‘commands’ has been raised.  
  
Defying the command of a superior officer of the Guards is a sackable offence. Defying the command of a governor is considered treason. Either way, he has no choice but to acquiesce.  
  
He’s keen to ensure that the prince does not mistake that acquiescence for anything approaching approval of his plans, so whilst he does board the carriage without further protest, he pretends not to hear the prince’s insipid attempt at an apology for his threatened actions, and thereafter all of his tentative forays towards engaging him in conversation.  
  


* * *

 

  
  
Despite Alasdair’s predictions, there are no crowds of onlookers gathered near the scene. There don’t even appear to be any guards.  
  
The entire area is deserted save for a couple of mangy dogs, growling at each other over the bloated corpse of a rat, and a keen-eyed crow watching the fight from a safe perch atop a buckled lamppost.  
  
Considering the ripe smell in the air, and the foul sludge bubbling up from several of the grates dotted along the length of the pavement’s kerb, Alasdair would guess that the sewers have recently backed up somewhere nearby, which would go a long way towards explaining why the street has temporarily been abandoned to the local wildlife, no matter what might have happened there since.  
  
“Are you sure this is the right place?” the prince asks Corporal Ellis, as he had given up trying to talk to Alasdair two streets back.  
  
Ellis nods vigorously. “Quite sure, Your Highness. Corporal Bell’s report was very clear.” He screws his eyes tightly closed as he recites: “Body found in an alleyway leading off Garrett Road, close to the junction with King Llewellyn’s Way. Assistance urgently requested.”  
  
“Well, this does appear to be it, then,” the prince says dubiously as the carriage rolls to a halt opposite the mouth of an alley very much like the one Alasdair and Angus in which had discovered the unfortunate M. Martinez: narrow, and twilight gloomy despite the brightness of the day. “I wonder why your Corporal Bell isn’t here to greet our arrival?”  
  
“He probably didn’t think he’d have to listen out for a carriage,” Alasdair says, which earns him a poisonous glare from the prince.  
  
He’s spared the accompanying unkind remark that glare promises by Gabriella, who comes dashing from the alley towards them, the loose folds of her healer’s robes flapping around her back like wings.  
  
“You came in a carriage, Aly. Good thinking,” she calls out. “I would have asked you to bring one myself, but I didn’t think you had access to any.”  
  
“I don’t usually.” Ignoring the coachman’s grumbled complaints, Alasdair leans over the carriage’s low door and opens it from the inside, then jumps down to the street. “The governor very kindly offered us the use of his.”  
  
“Well, be sure to thank him for me later,” says Gabriella, who either hasn’t noticed the barouche’s other passengers, or else is far too consumed by her own concerns to give any thought as to their identities.  
  
Judging by the bruisingly tight grip she latches on to his arm, and the desperate twist of her expression, Alasdair is inclined to believe the latter explanation even before she says, “We’ve got to get her back to my clinic as soon as possible.”  
  
“Who?”  
  
Gabriella looks at him incredulously. “Your fellow guardsmen’s so-called ‘dead body’,” she says. “She’s still alive, Aly. I thought that’s why you came.”

 

 


	14. Chapter 14

The woman is just as ill-suited to her benighted surroundings as Armand Martinez had been.  
  
Like him, she looks young, well-fed, and is dressed in far more expensive-looking clothes than anyone in Old Town could afford, the bodice of her long, crimson dress sparkling with a constellation of tiny seed pearls.  
  
Her one remaining shoe has been so thoroughly soaked with effluent that it’s impossible to tell what colour it might once have been. The other is nowhere in sight.  
  
“I think she was poisoned, just like the other man you found,” Gabriella says, crouching down beside the woman. She immediately takes up one of her hands, and then clutches it, comfortingly, in her lap. “Her nostrils were burnt in the same way, and she’d vomited several times. I cleaned her up as best I could before you came. I hope that won’t affect your investigation too badly.”  
  
She doesn’t sound overly concerned by that possibility, but, first and foremost, she’s a healer, and the comfort and well-being of her patient must always be her paramount consideration. Alasdair doesn’t really disagree with her on that score.  
  
“Naw,” he says, “if Dyl hasn’t been able to find anything useful in Martinez’s blood, I doubt he’d be able to do any more with sick. It’s better that you tried to make her more comfortable, Gabs.”  
  
Gabriella nods tightly. “I could have done more for her already if I hadn’t thought I was coming out to inspect a corpse. I didn’t think to bring any of my usual supplies with me. That’s why I sent the two guards who found her off to fetch my emergency bag and a stretcher.” She smooths the woman’s tangled flaxen hair back from her forehead, and then gently cups her pale cheek with her palm. “A blanket, too. She’s freezing, poor thing.”  
  
“Here, this might help.”  
  
The prince’s voice shocks Alasdair because he’d been too absorbed to notice his approach, but he wheels around to face the other man swiftly enough, he hopes, that it effectively disguises the reflexive, startled jerk of his body.  
  
The prince is standing in his shirtsleeves, his grey frockcoat clutched in one hand, extended out towards them. If Alasdair had ever thought to wonder about such things before, he would have been surprised by how broad his shoulders looked even without its padding.  
  
As it is, he realises that he must have subconsciously decided that the prince was disguising a fragile, willowy sort of frame with the heavy coats he habitually wears, and recognises that he isn’t, almost simultaneously.  
  
“It’ll get filthy, sir,” he makes himself say when he becomes uncomfortably aware that having his pointless epiphany has likely led him to stare at the prince for entirely too long. “Probably ruin a fancy coat like that.”  
  
“I have dozens more, Corporal.” The prince jiggles the frockcoat a little, as though it’s the bait on the end of a fishing line and he’s attempting to make it seem more enticing. “Please, take it.”  
  
“But –“  
  
“It’ll work just fine, Aly,” Gabriella says, digging her elbow quite pointedly into Alasdair’s side as she gets to her feet. “Thank you…”  
  
Her silence is just as pointed, so Alasdair helpfully supplies, “Your Highness.”  
  
“Or ‘sir’,” the prince quickly adds. “Whichever you prefer, Miss Carriedo.”  
  
To Alasdair’s eye, the prince’s smile looks far too stiff and ingratiating to be real, but Gabriella seems to be captivated by it, nevertheless. Her answering smile is so broad that it teases out laughter lines at the corners of her eyes, and she even makes a small bow before taking the coat from the prince.  
  
She lays it out open over the woman’s chest and then tucks the collar around her chin. The woman's eyelids flutter slightly in response to the movement, but they do not open.  
  
“My clinic’s practically on the opposite side of Old Town from here,” Gabriella says. “It probably would have taken us the best part of half an hour to walk there carrying a stretcher. I’m so grateful for the use of your carriage, sir, because she’s sickly enough that that sort of delay could have been costly.”  
  
Technically, the prince had never offered his carriage for anything other than transporting Alasdair and Corporal Ellis to the crime scene, but he does not argue the toss.  
  
“You should go and give my coachman directions to your clinic,” he says. “Corporal Kirkland and I will bring your patient to the carriage for you.”  
  
“We will? Where’s Ellis hiding himself?” Alasdair realises only as he asks the question that he has seen neither hide nor hair of the other corporal since he left the carriage. “He should be helping me with this.”  
  
“Corporal Ellis decided that he should try to catch up with the other guards who were here earlier, and see if they needed any help transporting Miss Carriedo’s supplies.”  
  
The prince’s voice is completely toneless, but Alasdair still suspects that his fellow guard didn’t ‘decide’ any such thing. Corporal Ellis wouldn’t need any commands in order to obey a prince; a gentle suggestion would serve just as well.  
  
Now is definitely not the time to start interrogating either the prince’s underhanded tactics, or his motives, so Alasdair forces himself to return his attention to the task at hand.  
  
“Well,” he says, “I suppose I could carry her on my own.”  
  
“No, you could not,” Gabriella says, sounding aghast. “I’ve _seen_ how you carry people, Aly, and this poor woman is in no condition to be slung over your shoulder like a sack of grain. I’ll carry her with you, and talk to the coachman when we reach the carriage.”  
  
“Or we could just do as I suggested, and _I’ll_ help Corporal Kirkland,” the prince says, with a long, weary sigh. “Look, Corporal,” he adds, as he begins unbuttoning his cuffs, “I can even roll my sleeves up so you don’t have to worry that I might dirty my shirt, too.”  


 

* * *

  
  
  
Lili, Gabriella’s young apprentice, meets them at the door to her clinic.  
  
When she catches sight of the woman, sagging limply between Alasdair’s arms and the prince’s, her face rapidly drains of blood, and she raises one hand to cover her mouth, just a little too late to smother a shocked gasp.  
  
She appears to be in danger of fainting dead away, but Alasdair has no real fear of it. Lili might look delicate on the surface, but she’s clearly made of something far stronger than steel at the core. Her guardian and brother – an Eastgate banker with a reputation for ruthlessness, and so successful that he's widely held to piss gold and shit coppers – had expressly forbidden her from accepting the healer’s apprenticeship out of fear her health, but a year on, she’s still at Gabriella’s side.  
  
“Lili, this woman’s been poisoned,” Gabriella tells her. “You know which remedies I need, right?”  
  
Lili nods firmly.  
  
“Good.” Gabriella gives her an encouraging smile. “Now you run and get them for me; I’ll make her comfortable in the treatment room.”  
  
Whilst Lili dashes away towards the dispensary, Gabriella directs Alasdair and the prince towards the back of the clinic building.  
  
Alasdair’s been fortunate enough that he’s only needed a healer’s attention once in his life, so he’s never seen Gabriella’s treatment room before.

Even as a seventeen-year-old, Mr Morton’s had been a terrifying place: cluttered with dusty furniture, human skeletons in various stages of disassembly, and grotesquely misshapen fleshy _things_ floating in jars. Gabriella’s, in comparison, is almost calming. Apart from the low bed in the centre of the room, its only contents are a tall bookcase and medicine chest. The whitewashed walls are spotlessly clean and the wooden floor well-swept. The air smells of nothing but lavender and beeswax.  
  
“Just lay her down there,” Gabriella says, gesturing towards the bed, “and then you can go upstairs and wait in my parlour. That way, I can come and let you know straight away if there’s any change in her condition.”

 

 

* * *

  
  
  
Although Gabriella’s request had been directed towards Alasdair, when they leave the treatment room, the prince follows on behind him as decisively as if it had encompassed the both of them.  
  
Once they reach the parlour, he makes a beeline for Gabriella’s best armchair, and once installed in it, motions for Alasdair to take a seat on the sofa as though he’s the master of the house rather than a guest.  
  
Alasdair thus avoids the sofa on principle, condemning himself to perch uncomfortably on the low, rickety wooden chair Gabriella usually uses as a footstool.  
  
Within a handful of prickly moments, he discovers both the reason she never sits on it, and that the price of virtue is painfully steep. He’ll likely be picking splinters out of his arse for weeks to come.  
  
The prince gives Alasdair a hatefully beatific smile, and then says, “Miss Carriedo seems to be a very competent healer.”  
  
Although Alasdair has no more wish to speak to the prince now than he had when they boarded his carriage back at the guardhouse, it seems churlish to let any compliment towards Gabriella go unacknowledged. “Aye, she is,” he says curtly.  
  
“I understand your brother is about to start courting her.”  
  
Puzzled, Alasdair frowns at him.  
  
“Who the hell told you that?” Belatedly, his thoughts turn towards his earlier suspicions, and he has to wonder whether the prince has informants outside the guards as well as within them. Admittedly, the sad details of Arthur’s romantic life seem as though they should be beneath the notice of a governor, but, then again, he’s heard that nobles can take a peculiar interest in the minutiae of their servants comings and goings, perhaps for fear they might be formenting a below stairs uprising and plan on poisoning their porridge one morning or some such. “You really need to get yourself better spies if that’s the sort of rubbish they’re feeding you.”  
  
“Spies?” The prince stares at Alasdair, uncomprehending, for a moment, but then his mouth twists savagely and he spits out, “For the love of… I didn’t hear it from any _spy_ , Corporal. Your brother told me himself.  
  
“We talked after I returned to the palace yesterday, and in the course of conversation, he mentioned that he’d been saving his coppers for years in preparation for just that thing, and had finally accumulated almost as much money as he felt he needed for it.”  
  
Alasdair has to admit that that sounds exactly like the sort of stupid thing Arthur _would_ say. He’s lucky Gabriella’s forgiving enough that she didn’t give up on him after he turned down her first offer of courtship, and patient enough that she can endure his ridiculous obsession with their difference in fortunes in the first place.  
  
“You really are impossible to talk to at times,” the prince says, his tone turning petulant. “Always jumping to the most uncharitable conclusions.”  
  
Because, this once, it appears that he might have jumped to the _wrong_ conclusion, and because he’s not afraid of owning up to his mistakes, Alasdair says, “Sorry, sir.”  
  
“I’ll only accept your apology if you accept mine,” the prince says, a sly smile slowly creeping onto his lips. “Corporal, again, I apologise for my behaviour at the guardhouse. I shouldn’t have threatened to pull rank like that. You know your job better than I do.”  
  
He certainly sounds contrite enough, even if he doesn’t particularly look it, and though Alasdair digs deep, he can find nothing more than faint echoes of his earlier anger. Refusal just doesn’t feel quite so important anymore.  
  
“Fair enough,” he says, holding out his hand so they can shake and seal the promise.  
  
He had expected the prince to take hold of it loosely – if he could bring himself to make skin to still-grimy-skin contact at all – but his movements are sure and his grip is firm.  
  
His palm is calloused in exactly the same places as Alasdair’s, which suggests he might at last have told the truth about his proficiency with the sword, and also a little damp. Alasdair takes amused note of that with the intention of later recounting it to Dylan, who seems convinced that the nobility would never do anything as crass as sweating.  
  
The prince drops their handshake at the same time as he gives a sharp cough, seemingly finding a need clear his throat.  
  
“It’s a strange thing, courtship,” he says afterwards, his voice still a little hoarse. “We don’t have it in Gallia, as I’m sure you know. I tried to read up on it before moving to Britannia, but could only find very vague accounts.”  
  
“I’m not surprised.” Alasdair shrugs. “The bards might have recorded the lives of anyone of any importance who ever lived here – down to each and every fucking bowel movement – and mapped every inch of this island, but even _they_ wouldn’t write about it. Courting rules are ancient, and they’ve always been passed down by word of mouth. When they think you’re old enough, your Ma or Da or whoever it is that has charge of you will sit you down and let you into the secret.  
  
“I couldn’t tell you much about it myself, before you ask. Ma told my sister and me not long before we lost her, but neither of us was much interested, so we spent the whole time trying to make each other laugh behind her back and barely took in a word.”  
  
“And has that made it difficult for you to court someone?”  
  
The prince’s expression betrays nothing more than mild interest, but the question’s still prying enough that Alasdair doesn’t feel inclined to give it a proper answer.  
  
“I can’t say that it’s something that interests me now, either,” he says.  
  
Let him chew on that, the nosy bugger, and ponder whether Alasdair meant that he had no wish to ever tie himself down to one person, or else intended to live a life of celibacy and solitude for some noble purpose or other.  
  
The prince doesn’t pause for long enough to have given the matter any serious consideration, however, which leads Alasdair to believe that he’d just been making small talk again, and simply hadn’t thought that the enquiry was as intrusive as Alasdair had taken it to be.  
  
“And your sister?” the prince asks.  
  
“I can’t imagine her ever settling down, in any place or with anyone. She joined the army as soon as she was able, so she could keep on travelling.” It’s finally becoming easy to say these days; it doesn’t hurt half so much as it used to. “You might have met her in Germania, actually. She fought there, too.”  
  
“I don’t recall a Kirkland.” The prince’s brow wrinkles. “You said her given name was Kate?”  
  
“Well, Caitlin, really. My family has a fondness for nicknames.”  
  
“So I’d noticed.” The prince grins almost impishly. “Now, I know you weren’t keen on me calling you Alasdair; would your answer change if I used Aly, instead?”  
  
Alasdair rolls the idea around in his mind for a while, but ultimately decides that he doesn’t like the look of it from any angle.  “Only if you’re willing to be Fran from now on,” he says.  
  
The prince winces. “I’m… not sure I am, Corporal.”  
  
“I didn’t think you would be, sir.”  
  
The silence that descends then is a peaceable one, almost comfortable, and it prevails until Gabriella pokes her head around the door several minutes later and says, “Can I talk to you in private for a moment, Aly?”  
  
As soon as he’s joined her in the corridor outside the parlour, he anxiously asks, “Has her condition deteriorated?”  
  
Gabriella shakes her head. “No, she’s stable; maybe even improving. She’s regained a little colour already, I think. That wasn’t what I wanted to talk to you about, though. I found something,” she says, fumbling in one of the pouches that hang from her belt, “hidden in the folds of her dress.”  
  
It isn’t a rose this time, but something potentially far more interesting: a small dart, wickedly sharp at one end and topped by stubby brown feathers at the other.  
  
“Dyl’s tests will work better on that than either vomit _or_ blood, won’t they?” Gabriella asks.  
  
“Aye,” Alasdair says, “I think they will.”

 

 


	15. Chapter 15

Alasdair returns to the parlour more out of courtesy to Gabriella than the prince. He would have much preferred to slip away to the guardhouse quietly and thus avoid any unnecessary questions or accounting of his movements, but he suspects the prince would start interrogating Gabriella about his whereabouts once he realised he’d been given the slip, and Alasdair would rather spare her that particular vexation if he can. She has quite enough on her plate, and could likely do without a dollop of meddlesome royalty being piled on top of it all.  
  
“I’m going to have to go,” he tells the prince.  
  
“Go where?” the prince says, springing to his feet, just as Alasdair had feared he might. The man is a menace. “Has the woman—"  
  
“Gabs thinks she might be getting better,” Alasdair says, shaking his head. “She found some evidence that she thought my brother should take a look at, though. I need to go to the guardhouse, let the captain know what I’m planning on doing, and then on to the apothecary so Dylan can work his magic.”  
  
The prince’s swift intake of breath makes him instantly rue his thoughtless words. He should know better – he _does_ know better, usually – but the prince’s has been so tolerant of his plain speaking thus far that it has made him grow careless, it seems. He should never have allowed himself to forget, even for a moment, that the prince is an agent of the Empire. And, in this, the Empire has no mercy.  
  
It was just a slip of the tongue, but people have been condemned for far less.  
  
“He uses herbal concoctions and the like, and nothing more,” Alasdair says hurriedly. Pleadingly. “It was just a turn of phrase.”  
  
The prince’s smile is so wooden, it appears more like a grimace. “A poorly chosen one, given the circumstances,” he says.  
  
Alasdair’s blood runs cold. “How… How poorly chosen, sir?”  
  
If he makes a break for it now, he’s sure he could have Dylan packed and on the road before the prince even returns to the palace. He shifts his weight in preparation.  
  
“Under the strictest definition of Imperial law, it constitutes cause for investigation at the very least.” The prince’s lips twitch again, softening their hard line into something far warmer. “But I’m no fanatic, Corporal, and I understand that an idiom is not a confession of any sort of guilt. I can assure you that I will write no reports about this.”  
  
Alasdair’s breath gusts out of him in a sudden rush of relief which leaves him feeling dizzy and light-headed afterwards. He gives into his immediate impulse to grab the prince’s hand, but checks himself before he succumbs to the second and presses his lips to the man’s knuckles like he’s some fucking vassal pledging fealty to his lord.  
  
Instead, he restrains himself to shaking the prince’s hand again and telling him, “Thank you, sir.”  
  
The prince looks bemused, but he does not attempt to loosen Alasdair’s grip. “You shouldn’t have to thank me for simply using a little common sense, Corporal.”  
  
“I shouldn’t,” Alasdair says, “but it’s rare enough that I didn’t assume I could expect it, even so.”  
  
When he starts to break their handshake, the prince catches hold of his fingers, squeezing them briefly before letting both Alasdair’s and his own hand drop. He fusses with his shirt for a while, eyes averted downwards as he smooths out the small creases that have gathered around its collar, and then heaves a deep sigh.

“If you recall, Corporal,” he says, sounding slightly weary, “I was on my way to meet with your captain before you so thoroughly distracted me. I still need to speak to her, so I could inform her of your plans at the same time and save you the trip to the guardhouse.” He glances up at Alasdair through his lowered lashes. “I could even drop you off at the apothecary on the way, if you like, and save you that walk, too.”  
  
Alasdair’s gratitude for the Prince’s forbearance regarding his misspeak is immense, but it does have its limits. “I’d prefer that you didn’t, if you don’t mind, sir. My neighbours’ tongues are still wagging over the last time you drove me home.”  
  
The prince’s eyebrows inch higher. “And what are they saying?”  
  
His voice has taken on a teasing tone which suggests that he knows full well what sort of rumours have been circulating around Old Town since then. Alasdair frowns at him, but the prince seems stubbornly determined to continue avoiding looking at him straight on, so the expression goes entirely to waste.  
  
“Nothing good,” Alasdair says, and then, compelled by what he can only guess is a petty need to punish the prince for ignoring his displeasure, adds, “I doubt you’d like it if you knew what they’re saying about you, either.”  
  
“Oh, I’m sure I wouldn’t mind, Corporal.”  
  
He finally lifts his head then, and his gaze is challengingly direct. Alasdair supposes that, given the prominence of his position, he’s probably used to being the subject of gossip – within his own circles, at least; there have never been any scandals associated with him reported in the periodicals, as far as Alasdair has seen – and feels a little foolish for trying to attack him in such a way. He’d likely had to learn how to let that sort of talk wash over him long since.  
  
“Maybe not,” Alasdair allows, “but I do.”  
  
“And, as we agreed before, you are a far better judge of your own life than I am.” The prince nods decisively. “I’ll take the carriage alone, then, and trust you to find your own front door.”  
  
It’s only a very minor concession, but somewhat of a miracle all the same, given his past behaviour. Alasdair chuckles, and offers him a small bow.  
  
“I shall endeavour to ensure that your faith is not misplaced,” he says in an exaggeratedly serious tone; in that moment willing, for his own amusement as much as the prince’s, to act the part of loyal liegeman he’d managed to evade the appearance of before.  
  
The prince’s reaction to his performance is impossible for Alasdair to decipher.  His reddening cheeks suggest that he’s shared the jest, but then the harsh way he clips his words when next he speaks conversely implies that he found no humour in it.  
  
“You really are impossible, Corporal.” He pinches hard at the bridge of his nose whilst flapping his free hand towards the parlour door. “Go, do your duty. Don’t let me keep you any longer.”  
  
Alasdair had no intention of doing so. He dismisses the prince from his thoughts as easily as the prince had just dismissed him from his presence, and devotes them to more pressing matters. He needs to let Gabriella know that she should tell Ellis and the other corporals where he’s taken himself off to when they finally manage to drag their arses to the clinic, and then he should –  
  
“Corporal.” The prince’s voice is hushed, but it forces an awareness of him unwillingly back to the forefront of Alasdair’s mind.  
  
He groans; for a man who professes himself so concerned with the work of the Guards, the prince seems to care little about delaying Alasdair in the proper execution of it.  
  
“Sir,” Alasdair says stiffly, letting his hand fall from the parlour door’s handle.  
  
Even though it was at his call, the prince seems almost shocked to see Alasdair turn towards him. His mouth falls open as if on a gasp, but none emerges. Nor does any other sound, though his lips eventually close and then part again several times.  
  
“What did you need me for?” Alasdair prompts, when he – very swiftly – grows tired of this fruitless digression into uneasy silence.  
  
“Corporal, I…” The prince’s fingers start to pluck at his shirt front once more. “I wonder if you would… If you might see fit to…”  
  
The prince has always been so glib, and this stumbling over his words seems so at odds with what little Alasdair has come to know of him that he can’t help but wonder what might have caused it, despite his frustration with the man otherwise.  
  
He reckons he could have a damn good guess; so long as the prince had been truthful earlier about believing him better situated to know how best to perform his job, in any case. “I’ll let you know what Dyl finds out, sir, but only if the captain allows it. It’s not really my decision to make otherwise.”  
  
The way the prince’s head snaps back up to attention both appears to confirm Alasdair’s supposition and spreads a diffuse warmth through his chest in that confirmation’s wake. His apology had been sincerely made, seemingly, and he’s at least _trying_ to hold himself to it.  
  
“Of course,” the prince says in a smooth drawl, unmarred by any further fumbling hesitations. “I wouldn’t dream of asking you to do it any other way. If she does give you permission, perhaps you could send me a note about your brother’s findings?”  
  
“Best not to put these things in writing, sir,” Alasdair says. “It’s too easy for notes to go astray. Perhaps we could meet at the guardhouse? Or I could always come up to the palace again.”  
  
He throws the second suggestion in as an afterthought, not really intending it to be much more than a joke, but the prince appears to give it the serious consideration it doesn’t really deserve.  
  
“You could,” he says, looking thoughtful. “Though I think I might prefer to talk to you at your apothecary, where the walls don’t have so many ears. What would you say to that idea, Corporal?”  
  
He’s teasing again, judging by the smirk he can’t quite hold back, and Alasdair rolls his eyes at him, accordingly. “I’d say ‘thanks, but no thanks’, sir, as I’m sure you’re already aware.”  
  
The smirk grows, unfettered now, into a wide grin. “I choose the palace, then, for our next rendezvous, if that offer still stands.”  
  
Alasdair can’t summon up a good reason to refuse. The walk to the palace is an enjoyable one, if nothing else, and, besides, on reflection he’s sure that it would be in his best interests to dissuade the prince from seeking him out at the guardhouse again. If there’s one group that likes gossip better than his neighbours, it’s his fellow guards. If he can, he should try to make sure that they’re not seen there in one another’s company following today’s – unavoidable – encounter.  
  
“Aye, all right,” he says. “Is there some special protocol I need to follow before I come? Send word to your secretary or something?”  
  
The prince shakes his head. “There’s no need, Corporal,” he says. “You may visit whenever you like. I’ll let my guards know that the doors should always be open for you.”

 

 


	16. Chapter 16

He might not yet know who killed Armand Martinez, what sort of poison they used to do it, or have even the faintest inkling of their motive, but Alasdair manages to resolve one of the case’s loose ends simply by walking in through his front door.  
  
The elusive bard is standing there, slap-bang in the middle of Alasdair's own damn shop, plucking away at his small harp and quietly warbling some dreary folk song or other like he doesn’t have a care in the world.  
  
Thankfully, he’s so enraptured by the exploits of High King Unintelligible-Name that, even though the apothecary’s warped floorboards don’t exactly lend themselves to stealthy movement, he doesn’t react to Alasdair’s approach until he’s close enough to grab at his shoulder.  
  
The bard startles at the touch, ending the tune in a discordant clash of jumbled notes, and then blinks confusedly up at Alasdair. “Wha–“  
  
“Aly, you’re here,” Dylan says, face wreathed in smiles as he breezes onto the shop floor through the kitchen door. “I’m so glad. How did it go with the…?” When his eyes fall to Alasdair’s hand, all of his good cheer evaporates in an instant. He stops dead in his tracks, and asks, “Is something the matter?”  
  
Alasdair knows it isn’t really a question but a rebuke couched in the guise of one; a reminder that it’s the height of bad manners to manhandle one’s brother’s guests.  
  
Normally, Alasdair accepts Dylan’s corrections on such matters without protest, but as there’s more at stake than his brother’s sensibilities, he pays him no mind and listens to his guard’s training instead.  
  
He tightens his hold – prompting a squawked complaint from the bard that he also ignores – and then recites, “You’re coming with me. You have the right to remain silent, and I’ll explain further when you’re safely in custody.”  
  
Dylan’s eyebrows sink and then rise again in a two-step dance of concern. “What’s going on?”

“He’s needed for questioning. I’m taking him to the guardhouse.”  
  
The bard’s entire body stiffens, his muscles tightening beneath Alasdair’s palm. “The guardhouse?” he repeats shakily.  
  
“You can’t just drag him away without telling us why, Aly,” Dylan says, his voice about as sharp as it’s capable of sounding. “What’s he supposed to have done?”  
  
Alasdair feels as though he’s just as trapped as the bard is. On the one hand, there are his captain’s orders not to involve himself with this particular aspect of the investigation, and on the other, his unwillingness to lie to Dylan.  
  
“They found a scrap of paper inside the murdered man’s wallet with his name written on it,” he says eventually, rationalising that Jones would tell the bard just the same thing as soon as he hands him into her custody, so really he’s just saving her a little time by getting the mundanities out of the way now.  
  
“My name?” says the bard, who is apparently incapable at present of doing anything other than parroting back the odd word or two of Alasdair’s.  
  
“It said Llewellyn Walsh?” Dylan asks, sounding slightly incredulous.  
  
“Well, no,” Alasdair has to admit. “Just Llewellyn.”  
  
Dylan’s eyebrows sweep up to their apex again. “He can’t possibly be the only man in the whole of Deva with that name. Why are you so certain that… that _our_ Llewellyn is the right one?”

Frankly, Alasdair _doesn’t_ feel quite as certain as he had before. It had seemed so right back in the captain’s office; a nice clean line of connection running between the wallet, its thief, and then onto the bard. He should have considered that it was perhaps a little too neat. Crimes are rarely so tidy.  
  
“Maybe it wasn’t even a person’s name at all,” Dylan ploughs on. “There are lot buildings around here named after King Llewellyn, after all. Like the Llewellyn Tower over on Greenacres, for example.”  
  
The bard regains sufficient power of independent speech to add, “Streets, too. That’s why I was called Llewellyn, you know.” He glances across at Dylan, smiling diffidently. “I was found abandoned on Llewellyn Rex Road as a baby.”  
  
That revelation causes every last hint of annoyance to melt away from Dylan’s face – because he’s as soppy as a child faced with a basket filled with an equal mix of puppies and kittens – but it doesn’t make Alasdair feel even a drop of pity for the bard’s unhappy past.  
  
He’s far too busy feeling like an idiot to spare a thought for anything else.  
  
“Or King Llewellyn’s Way,” he says under his breath.  
  
King Llewellyn’s Way, off which two streets run. Two streets which have alleyways leading from them where two people were found poisoned.  
  
The scrap of paper was probably the remains of a set of fucking _directions_. It would certainly explain how Martinez, at least, had managed to find his way to an out of the way spot in Old Town that most of the locals likely didn’t even know existed.  
  
“Are you all right, Aly?” Dylan asks anxiously. “You’re looking a little pale.”  
  
“I’m fine, Dyl. I've just realised that I might have been barking up the wrong tree about the bard.” Alasdair sighs, releases his grip on Llewellyn, and then tells him, “I’ll still have to take you to the guardhouse after I’ve had a private word with my brother, but it’s only so we can get things straightened out up there. I’m beginning to think you probably won’t be able to help us much, after all.”  


 

* * *

  
  
  
After his shift ends, Alasdair heads to the clinic rather than home, and is surprised to find his knock answered by Gabriella herself rather than Lili.  
  
“I was under the impression you didn’t do the whole meet and greet thing at the door anymore,” Alasdair says as she ushers him inside. “Wasn’t that the half the reason you took on an apprentice in the first place?”  
  
“It was,” Gabriella says, “but I presumed you were our illustrious visitor, circling back to pick up the gloves he forgot to take with him last time. Lili’s terrified of speaking to him in case she says the wrong thing, so I thought it best if I dealt with him instead.”  
  
“Illustrious visitor?”  
  
“Why do you even need to ask, Aly? Who else would it be but the governor? He was on his way to a guild meeting, apparently, just so happened to pass by the clinic, and decided he might as well pop in to check on my patient.”  
  
She sounds about as sceptical about the prince’s explanation as Alasdair feels. “He must have been taking a very circuitous route there,” he says, struggling to keep a straight face. “I can’t think of any guild halls over this side of Old Town.”  
  
“The poor man was obviously hopelessly lost.” Gabriella doesn’t bother trying to fight back her own grin. “He likely wouldn’t have made it to his meeting anyway even if he hadn’t spent almost two hours here and left only five minutes back.”  
  
“It’s a crying shame he missed it,” Alasdair says with a long sigh. “I’m sure the Guild of Imaginary Friends would have really valued his input.”  
  
Gabriella chuckles, and then links her arm with Alasdair’s. “I assume you’re here for the same reason as the governor,” she says, suddenly serious again. “I’ll take you to her.”  
  
In the days when Old Town was simply Deva, the clinic building had been the home of a very minor noble family. Over the years, its once quite extensive grounds were sold off, quarter acre by creeping quarter acre, to allow for the construction of far humbler buildings, until all that remained in the present day was a tiny walled garden to its rear.  
  
Arthur’s green fingers and careful devotion have ensured that it’s still awash with colour, even at this dying time of the year, and the view of it through the tall, arched windows of the ward Gabriella leads Alasdair to makes the room seem bright and cheery despite its dull grey walls.  
  
The poisoned woman – the ward’s sole occupant for the moment – has been settled in the bed furthest from the door. As he nears her, Alasdair is struck by how peaceful she looks. Her cheeks are pinked, breathing steady, and her mouth is bowed slightly into a small smile. He could easily believe she was simply sleeping, and caught up in some pleasant dream.  
  
“She hasn’t regained consciousness yet,” Gabriella says, dropping Alasdair’s arm so she can briefly press two fingers against the inside of the woman’s wrist. She nods in satisfaction, and then adds, “But her pulse is strong, and she’s resting easy now, so I’m hopeful that she might wake soon. Without knowing what poison was used, though, I’m afraid there’s not much more I can do for her until she does.”  
  
“Dyl’s working on it, Gabs,” Alasdair says. “If anyone can figure it out, it’ll be him.”  
  
“I know; I just wish…” Gabriella shakes her head, and then says, very firmly, “I wish I could stop dwelling on it quite so much.” She glances sidelong at Alasdair. “The governor served as a good distraction whilst he was here.”  
  
Which is a leading statement if ever Alasdair heard one, and he refuses to indulge it past the making the most cursory of hums that could pass muster as polite acknowledgement of the fact that he’s been spoken to. Talking _to_ the prince had already taken up far more of his day than he would have liked, he doesn’t want to waste any more of it talking _about_ him.  
  
“He was full of questions about you,” Gabriella continues on regardless. “We barely talked about anything else.”  
  
Alasdair’s curiosity piques despite himself.  “What sort of questions?” he asks reluctantly.  
  
Regardless of his reservations about the subject matter, he can’t abide the thought of not knowing what stories the prince might have been able to wring out of Gabriella. Remaining in ignorance would put him at a distinct disadvantage the next time they met.  
  
“Oh, mainly about what you were like as a wean, after I mentioned that we grew up practically next door to each other.”  
  
“What did you tell him?”  
  
“Only good things,” Gabriella says, squeezing Alasdair’s hand reassuringly. “Like how you helped me and Antonio learn our letters, and how you used to trudge over to your aunt’s farm every day to help out in lambing season, even when it was thick with snow. Nothing even remotely scandalous.”  
  
And nothing that Alasdair wouldn’t have told the prince himself, had their conversation ever wended its way in that direction, though it may have led him to construct a far rosier picture of Alasdair’s childhood years - which had contained almost as many instances of teasing Dylan until he cried and throwing Arthur into the pond behind the ironmonger’s as they had good deeds - than they deserve.  
  
Before he can even begin to relax, though, Gabriella says one of the very last things he could have ever wanted to hear, shattering any chance he had of regaining his peace of mind entirely.  
  
“I think he’s taken quite a fancy to you, you know.”  
  
It would certainly explain the lingering looks, and a fair number of the prince’s other actions that Alasdair has taken note of, carefully catalogued in his memory in a place far, far apart from his other observations concerning the prince’s behaviour, and then steadfastly refused to revisit, for fear of reaching exactly that conclusion.  
  
His interactions with the prince are difficult enough waters to navigate without muddying them further with possibility of any sort of attraction on the prince’s part. When it comes to affairs of the heart, Alasdair might as well be trying to cross an ocean in a tin tub whilst blindfolded, with both hands tied behind his back, even in the best of circumstances.  
  
“Even if he has,” he says, attempting to sound nonchalant; attempting to brush the whole issue aside because there’s very few topics he likes to think about _less_ , “nothing’s ever going to come of it. I’m not in the least bit interested.”  
  
“In him, or—“  
  
Gabriella flushes and cuts herself abruptly, but Alasdair has heard that particular question – and variations upon the same theme besides – often enough that he can finish the sentence easily.  
  
The only surprise is that she hasn’t asked him before now.  
  
Nevertheless, he doesn’t have an answer for her. A handful of years ago, he would have had one readily to hand, but that had been before he had grown closer to Lukas Bondevik and discovered that he was capable of becoming _intrigued_ , at the very least.  
  
That particular dipping of his toes into the tides of romance might have ended badly – in blood and broken bones, no less, after Alasdair misinterpreted as an attack what he later came to realise was probably a tentative physical overture of some sort, and head-butted the poor man outside the Lost Antler – but he can no longer say ‘I'm not interested in general’ with the certainty he once had.  
  
He is very sure, however, that: “It doesn’t matter either way, does it, Gabs? There’s only one thing someone in his position is ever likely to offer someone in mine, and I’m definitely never going to want _that_ from him.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many thanks once again to nekoian, for the inspiration for the first section of this chapter!


	17. Chapter 17

The morning’s post brings mixed blessings in the form of a letter from Caitlin.  
  
Alasdair is mostly both delighted and relieved by its arrival – it’s been almost four months since her last correspondence and the Imperial army is notoriously slow at sending out notices of death; the fear is low-level but almost constant – but a small, jealous part of him that he can’t stand wants to hide it away somewhere and pretend it never existed.  
  
That small part doesn’t want to hear yet another instalment in her tales about military camaraderie and feats of bravery in battle, or how beautiful the scenery is in far distant lands that he’ll never have chance to see with his own eyes. He knows that Caitlin doesn’t mean to hurt him by sharing her experiences, but she does all the same.  
  
The pain of losing the future he had dreamt of since he was a boy is still more acute than any he has ever suffered from the knife wound that kept him from living in it, even now.  
  
These conflicting emotions just serve to render him completely incapable of action, and he finds himself still rooted to the same spot in the kitchen where he’d first recognised Caitlin’s handwriting long after the postman has left.  
  
The sound of Dylan shambling out of his laboratory finally shocks him out of his inertial stupor, and he hands the letter out to his brother as soon as he draws near, glad for the opportunity to cede the responsibility of a decision to him.  
  
“I don’t think I’m quite up to the task of focusing quite yet,” Dylan says, squinting down at the envelope blearily. “Can it wait until I’ve found myself a new set of eyes? Or had a cup of tea, at least.”  
  
“I imagine you’ll want to leave off opening it for a while, in any case,” Alasdair says. “It’s from Cait.”  
  
Dylan snatches the letter immediately, and then starts running his scarred fingertips over it as eagerly as if it had been made from the finest silk rather than standard army-issue paper.  
  
Freed from his onerous burden, Alasdair is able to better focus his attention on Dylan. He looks exhausted again: his eyelids red and puffy, his skin grey.  
  
“Did you end up testing that dart all fucking night?” Alasdair snaps, though he’s more annoyed at himself than his brother, because he should have known this might happen after he’d worked himself to the bone over Martinez’s blood. “You’re going to make yourself sick.”  
  
“Not all night,” Dylan assures him. “I nodded off at my workbench for a couple of hours.”  
  
“That’s not really any better. Go on.” Alasdair nudges Dylan towards the table. “Take a seat and I’ll make us both some tea.”  
  
Dylan practically collapses onto the closest chair, plummeting down so hard it almost looks as though his legs have given out from under him. He grumbles softly under his breath as he settles his them into a more comfortable-looking position, and then says, “It was all a waste of time, regardless, I’m afraid.  
  
“I detected emetics and diuretics, again, just like in the blood sample, at least one purgative, and a couple of soporifics, but I still haven’t found the poison. I’m sorry, Aly.”  
  
“It’s all right, Dyl.” Alasdair turns quickly towards the stove and busies himself with the  kettle so there’s no risk of his brother seeing any of the disappointment he feels at that news reflected in his expression. “It might be something so rare or exotic that you wouldn’t know what it was even if you had a labelled bottle of it sitting right there in front of you. And, if that’s the case, Gabs likely doesn’t have anything to counteract it with, either.”  
  
Dylan is quiet for so long that Alasdair starts to think that he must have fallen asleep, but he eventually stirs himself to say, “There’s one last experiment I want to try after I’ve had a little rest, though I have to warn you that I’m not really holding out much hope for it at this point.”  
  
Truthfully, neither is Alasdair, but he pretends confidence for Dylan’s sake. “I could turn out to be just the right one,” he says encouragingly.  
  
“Maybe so.” Alasdair can hear a hint of the same sort of false optimism in Dylan’s tone. “And even if I do fail, at least I have Cait’s letter to cheer myself up. It was a stroke of good luck, wasn’t it, that it arrived on the same day as Art’s free afternoon so we won’t have to wait too long to read it.”  
  
Alasdair wishes he could believe that it would actually be beneficial for him to undergo that particular trial as soon as possible, but experience has taught him that the timing of it makes absolutely no difference to the strength of his feelings.  
  
His nod of agreement is, therefore, equally feigned.

 

 

* * *

 

  
  
  
When Caitlin first joined the army, Arthur would inevitably end up having to read aloud her letters home, because Dylan would burst into tears if he tried, and Alasdair couldn’t manage to get through more than a sentence or two at a time before his voice betrayed him and began to crack.  
  
The raw wound her absence had torn through their family circle has healed sufficiently now that the duty has passed rightfully to Dylan, who has always had the best speaking voice of the three of them.  
  
After the dinner plates have been cleared from the table, they take their usual places – Alasdair at Dylan’s right hand, Arthur and Michael to his left – and wait in expectant silence for the Lifting of the Seal which signals the start of the ritual of The Reading of the Letter.  
  
Michael already looks bored by the whole proceedings – he was barely more than a bairn when she left, and has met her just three times since, so he likely feels no more connection to Caitlin’s words than those of a complete stranger – but Arthur is perched on the very edge of his seat, eyes fixed avidly on Dylan’s fingers as he meticulously parts wax from paper.  
  
After the Lifting of the Seal comes the Grand Unfolding; a time ripe with anticipation, given that there’s usually at least one Roman banknote nestled between the Letter’s pages.  
  
Today there are three, each promising to pay the bearer two gold coins on demand. Each worth as much as a month of Arthur, Dylan, and Alasdair’s earnings combined.  
  
The notes are carefully set aside, and after the requisite contemplative Pause to Appreciate Caitlin’s Generosity, Dylan starts skimming through the Letter so he can share a few of its highlights to tide them over until they’ve all finished their postprandial cups of tea and the full Reading can commence.  
  
Dylan breaks into a broad grin when his rapidly shifting eyes hit a point midway down the Letter’s first page. “Her legion is going to be moved to Britannia by the end of the year,” he says, his voice growing thready with his obvious joy.  
  
“Whereabouts is she going to be stationed?” Arthur asks.  
  
“She doesn’t know exactly. Most likely somewhere down south, though. Maybe Londinium.”  
  
That’s hardly on their doorstep, but still no more than a day and night’s travel on one of the new non-stopping stage-coaches; closer than she’s been to them for ten years, barring the occasional leave of absence she’s spent back at the apothecary.  
  
Alasdair doesn’t allow himself to dwell on the idea, however, because proximity is no promise that she’ll visit any more often than she ever has. Their home, she once told him, feels like a cage to her, no matter how much she might miss its inhabitants, and she probably couldn’t bear to submit herself to its confinement any more often than she already does.  
  
The start of the second page prompts an exclamation of surprise from Dylan, and a reddening of his ears which usually suggests that Caitlin has included some small mention of a more intimate detail about her life.  
  
Although Alasdair could take or leave knowing what it is, when it becomes clear that Dylan is unwilling to either divulge it or carry on reading past it, he feels he has to ask, “So, what’s this one’s name, then?” if only to remind his brother that he should be doing _something_.  
  
“It’s nothing like that, Aly. It’s…” Dylan glances up at him, his flush bleeding down to seep across his cheeks. “It’s about the governor.”  
  
Alasdair can’t escape the man in the safety of his own bloody home. “Right,” he says, because he knows it would be better to get _this_ trial over and done with sooner rather than later so it doesn’t have to linger in his mind for any longer than strictly necessary, “what’s she got to say about him, then.”  
  
“He, um… He…” Dylan takes a deep breath, and then says in a sudden rush, “There’ve been rumours going around her camp that he murdered someone.”  
  
“What?” Alasdair feels as though he’s been drenched in ice water. His skin prickles with goosebumps and he shivers, stomach pitting. “Here? In Deva?”  
  
“No,” Dylan says, grabbing at Alasdair’s sleeve and holding him in place before he can finish getting to his feet. “Whilst he was in Germania. The legion he commanded out there was disbanded after he was posted to Britannia, and some of the soldiers were transferred to Caitlin’s. They told her the prince had taken one of his Centurions as a lover, and the man just seemed to vanish from his tent during the night; there one day, gone the next.  
  
“They said he was a career soldier, definitely not the type to desert, and when they asked their Tribune about him, she acted as though she didn’t even know who they were talking about.”  
  
“I wouldn’t call any of that grounds for accusing someone of murder,” Arthur scoffs, crossing his arms, tight and defensive, over his chest. “A man disappears in the middle of a war? It’s hardly a mystery what else might have befallen him. Besides, the governor doesn’t seem like the type who would do such a thing.”  
  
Arthur is precisely the last quarter from which Alasdair would have ever expected support for the prince to come. He might grovel, bow, and scrape along with the rest of them at the palace, as his position demanded, but his oft-repeated opinion in private was that the prince was a ‘ridiculous, vain peacock of a man’ whose reported thoughts on floriculture obviously affirmed that he ‘hasn’t enough brains to fill an eggcup’.”  
  
“For fuck’s sake, Wart; you’ve never even talked to him! I don’t think you can judge whether or not someone’s a murderer just by watching them swan about their gardens a few times.”  
  
“I’m not saying that he’s above reproach, but the one time I _did_ talk to him” – Arthur smirks smugly at Alasdair – “seemed to prove that he’s a far better sort of person than I’d assumed him to be before.  
  
“On Ivan’s suggestion, I approached him to talk about my career prospects, given that I’m saving for… well, you know what, and he not only promised me I’d make gardener by the start of next year, he gave me a raise on the spot!”  
  
Which wasn’t how the prince had described their encounter to Alasdair. Yet another lie, which seems to prove to Alasdair that the prince is, as he had thought from the start, effortlessly duplicitous, even when he has no reason to be, and therefore nothing he does or says can be trusted.  
  
He’s _exactly_ the type of person who Alasdair could believe might commit murder.  
  
“All that shows is that he’s willing to throw his uncle’s money around at the slightest provocation,” he says. “One decent conversation isn’t evidence that he’s a good man, Wart. It doesn’t make you friends, or mean that you know who he really is, deep down.”  
  
“No more than sharing a carriage with him a time or two does, I suppose.”  
  
“You’re right,” Alasdair has to agree, even though the triumphal gleam in Arthur’s eyes makes him wish he could claim otherwise. “I probably don’t know him any better than you do, really.”  
  
But he needs to know more, especially when it comes to the prince’s service in the army. He needs to find out if there’s any truth to the rumours Caitlin’s heard, because it suddenly strikes him that there’s one thing that both of the poisoning victims have in common, apart from where and how they were attacked.  
  
They’re both young, good looking, and clearly highborn.  
  
The precise qualities Alasdair imagines a prince might look for in his lovers.

 

 


	18. Chapter 18

The small mirror hanging in Alasdair’s bedroom is bisected by a deep crack, chipped around its edges, and speckled with black spots where the silver backing has worn away.  
  
As a large portion of his face remains obscured in it, no matter at what tortuous angle he cranes his neck, Alasdair’s usual approach to shaving is by necessity somewhat trial and error and relies a great deal more on touch than sight.  
  
Today, however, he persists with the task far longer than he normally has the patience for, tilting his head and the mirror miniscular degrees left and right in an effort to catch as much of the thin light trickling in through the room’s small window as he can.  
  
When he can run his fingertips from the base of his throat up to his nose and from the point of his chin around to his ears, and not encounter a single stray bristle, he lays down his straight razor and picks up the glass bottle which had been his birthday present from Dylan the previous year.  
  
The astringent liquid it contains is infused with herbs, and Dylan had talked a good talk about their medicinal properties, but Alasdair knows that they were chosen more for their scent than any benefit to his health. It smells a touch too musky for his tastes, but would still be far preferable, he supposes, than the sweat he’s bound to work up during the walk he’s planning to take.  
  
He coats his palms with the stuff and then pats them, gingerly, against his cheeks, hissing at the sting as it soaks into his freshly shorn skin.  
  
Checking his reflection again, he notices that not only has his face now turned a shade of red probably best described as beetroot, his hair – which he had dampened and painstakingly combed through until it sat flat and sleek against his skull – has already begun springing back into its natural state of spiky disarray.  
  
He should have sat down and caught up on some of his reading instead, because at least then he would have done something productive with the last half hour. He’d looked more presentable before he started.  
  
Still, he can hardly will his stubble back into being through the sheer force of his regret, and his hair will clearly take matters into its own hands come what may, so there’s nothing more he can do at his basin.  
  
He turns to cast a critical eye over the clothes he’d laid out on his bed, to reassure himself that he won’t be wasting his time with them, too.  
  
The shirt had also been a gift; one selected, according to Gabriella, because it would complement both his eyes and his figure (and, she’d added later and with several pints inside her, because most of his other clothes looked like they’d been stitched together from old feed sacks). It has twiddly bits of embroidered frippery snaking around the cuffs, and is made from fabric that is more closely woven and less prickly than any other that Alasdair has ever owned. He hasn’t really got a decent sense for such things, but on the one occasion he’d worn it previously, Alasdair had thought Gabriella had perhaps been right and it did suit him quite well.  
  
As he has only one pair of boots, full stop, and one pair of trousers that isn’t either patched, thinning or reserved for work, he has no choice but to don both and hope that their particular shade of mud brown doesn’t clash too egregiously with the dark, mossy green of the shirt.  
  
Once dressed, he feels strangely awkward; as though he’s dressed in a mummer’s costume and trying to pass himself off as some different person entirely.  
  
The feeling becomes more pronounced when he walks downstairs into the kitchen, and Dylan stares across the table at him, wide-eyed, like he’s a stranger.  
  
“Where are you off to?” he asks, sounding slightly suspicious. “I can’t imagine you’re heading to Claire’s or the Antler looking like _that_.”  
  
It’s a sad testament to the customary monotony of Alasdair’s life that his brother can’t think of a single other possibility of how he might be spending his free day. Sad, but not erroneous.  
  
Or, it wouldn’t have been, had Alasdair not conceived of his current plan during the middle of the night.  
  
“I’m going to the palace to talk to the prince,” Alasdair says. “I want to update him on the progress you’ve made with that dart.”  
  
“But there hasn’t been any.” Dylan frowns. “I still haven’t had chance to do that last test I told you about.”  
  
“Well, I’ll tell him that, then,” Alasdair says, shrugging. “Look, it’s really just an excuse to get in there and talk to him. I’m hoping that I might be able to turn the conversation around to Germania, see if I can maybe get him to drop a few hints about what really happened with that centurion somehow.”  
  
Dylan's frown deepens. “Do you intend on seducing it out of him?” he asks. “Is that why you’re all dressed up?”  
  
Alasdair’s gut twists so painfully tight that it takes his breath away for an instant. “For fuck’s sake, Dyl,” he gasps out afterwards. “How can you even ask that? Of course I don’t.”  
  
But if Dylan had sprung to that conclusion, maybe the prince would as well. Perhaps he should go and get changed…  
  
_No_ , he tells himself firmly, _the clothes stay_.  
  
He’d several sleepless hours working through all of the _palatable_ strategies he could use to bring his plan to fruition, and the clothes had been an essential component in most of them.  
  
“Then why are you wearing your best shirt? And you’ve obviously tried to do” – Dylan waves his hand in a vague circular motion above his head – “something or other with your hair.”  
  
“I thought it’d help butter him up if I looked like I’d made a bit of an effort,” Alasdair says. “I am going to be meeting with an Imperial governor, after all, and I get the impression he thinks I don't give that sort of thing the respect it deserves.”  
  
Dylan nods, albeit a mite uncertainly. “So, you’re going to waltz up to the palace, and then what? Attempt to persuade the guards that you have something very urgent to tell the prince and have to see him right away?”  
  
“If the prince was telling me the truth the other day, I won’t have to persuade anyone,” Alasdair says.

 

 

* * *

 

  
  
The guards not only let Alasdair through the palace’s gates without question, one of them escorts him all the way to its front door, whereupon he is greeted by a butler who bows so deeply upon hearing his name that Alasdair is embarrassed on his behalf as well as his own.  
  
“I will inform Prince Francis of your arrival immediately, sir,” he says on his body’s upswing towards the vertical. “If you’d like to take a seat whilst you wait…”  
  
The gesture he makes towards the plushly upholstered sofa situated beneath a nearby portrait of a po-faced emperor past is vehement enough that Alasdair suspects standing is not actually an option, no matter what his personal desires might be.  
  
He has barely even finished settling his arse down as directed when he hears the click, tap, click, tap of compensatorily high heeled boots rattling down the hallway at a rapid clip.  
  
Cursing the prince’s lousy timing under his breath – and the butler’s obviously brutal efficiency – Alasdair scrambles to his feet and begins straightening out the creases that his blink-and-you-miss it sojourn on the sofa has pressed into his shirt and trousers.  
  
The trousers are made of stern enough stuff that they look passable again in short order, but the shirt proves itself as delicate as its embroidery and consequently Alasdair is still tugging at the hem of it in an attempt to flatten out a particularly stubborn rumpled patch when the prince clatters to a halt beside him.  
  
“Corporal,” he says a little breathlessly. “To what do I owe the pleasure of this visit?”  
  
For a moment, Alasdair finds himself apprehensive not about replying, but raising his eyes from the safe haven of his shirttail. He wishes that Gabriella had never voiced her little observation when he visited her at the clinic, never compelled him to make the connection he’d been avoiding, because he’s never known how to deal with other people’s attraction to him.  
  
He has no more idea how to deflect or discourage it graciously than he does how to cultivate it, even though he’s only ever had to do the former. In the past, he’s been as blunt in his rebuffs as good manners will allow and kept his fingers crossed that the recipient’s feelings aren’t hurt too badly in the process.  
  
The prince is a different proposition entirely, however, and he’ll need to keep him on side if he’s ever going to get to the bottom of what happened in Germania. He has to tread carefully, and he’s not certain that he's capable of doing so.  
  
The prince’s second, “Corporal,” is sharply barked, betraying signs of a shortening temper that Alasdair can’t ignore.  
  
“I said I’d let you know what my brother found out, Your Highness,” Alasdair says, cautiously lifting his head. “So here I am. Come to give my report.”  
  
The prince meets his eyes directly, but his gaze is opaque, lacking the evaluative concentration that Alasdair has grown used to seeing – and subsequently discounting – there.  
  
Counterintuitively, he finds himself disappointed by its lack. Not at the thought that the prince may already have grown tired of looking at him, but by the evidence that all of his frustrating preparations that morning must have been in vain if they don’t even merit so much as a quick once over, or a raised eyebrow of surprise.  
  
Maybe the speculation in the Antler was right, he does only like a bit of rough, and Alasdair could have had a lie in until noon, rolled up to the palace in his usual patched and frayed clothes, and been far better off all round.  
  
The thought annoys him, and the prince’s next words only serve to deepen the feeling.  
  
“I thought we’d agreed on ‘sir’, Corporal,” he says, light furrows inching across his forehead.  
  
“As you wish, sir,” says Alasdair, who’d been sure that that term of address would please the man even if nothing else did.  
  
It does not inspire any confidence in the rest of his plan’s chances for success, and he briefly wonders if it might be best for him to make his excuses and go home now, before things can take a turn from the merely ineffective into actively damaging territory.  
  
“As I wish?” The prince’s eyes narrow analytically, and then he gives his head a quick, firm shake, as though to shake loose whatever conclusion had settled within thereafter. “What I _wish_ is to retire to the rose drawing room,” he says, “so we can talk in privacy.”

 

 

* * *

 

  
  
The prince seems to grow more cheerful the instant that the drawing room door is closed behind them, and he practically skips towards a lacquered sideboard upon which two glasses and a carafe of white wine are standing.  
  
“I had this brought up as soon as I heard you were here,” he says, pouring out a small measure of the wine into one of the glasses and then handing it to Alasdair. “I’m determined to find a wine that you like rather than just tolerate, and this vintage is one of my particular favourites.”  
  
Which means that Alasdair will have to pretend to enjoy it, even if it tastes like mouldy bread soaked in turpentine. He might have been wrong about the clothes and the ‘Your Highness’, but he’d bet his life that he was right about _that_.  
  
He raises the glass to his nose and inhales deeply, which makes the prince smile at him like he’s a dog which has just demonstrated that it’s learnt a clever new trick.  
  
“Honey, pears, and a hint of spice,” the prince says before Alasdair has chance to ask.  
  
He sniffs again, but smells not much more than alcohol, exactly as he had the last time they shared wine together. When he drinks, however, he can detect a note of sweetness quite distinctly, teasing at the edges of a more powerful sour fruit acidity.  
  
“I can definitely taste the honey, sir.”  
  
The prince’s smile broadens into a grin. “Excellent,” he says, scampering back to the sideboard once more. “Then you should appreciate these all the more.”  
  
He returns with a gold-edged plate bearing four small, round pastries, whose creviced surfaces glisten with a sticky-looking white glaze.  
  
Notwithstanding the prince’s expectant expression and the rich, syrupy aroma drifting up from the plate, Alasdair still wishes he could refuse to take one. He’s not used to eating in any company other than family (and those near as damn it), and try as Da might, proper table decorum and the like had interested him about as much as learning Gallian and the rules of courtship. He’ll likely end up with glaze all over his face, crumbs all down his nice shirt, and horrify the prince with his boorishness along the way.  
  
He might be trying to present himself more favourably than is his typical wont, but as keeping the prince’s mood as sanguine as he is able to is his overriding aim, he damns all good sense when the prince’s lips begin to droop, grabs one of the pastries, and pops it in his mouth.  
  
It’s almost as light as air, melting against his tongue in a burst of warm nuttiness chased by sugared honey.  
  
“It’s delicious,” Alasdair says reflexively once he’s swallowed.  
  
The prince laughs in delight, the spark returning to his eyes for the first time since they met in the hall. “I told you I could bake, Corporal,” he says.  
  
Alasdair must look disbelieving, because the prince then adds, “Oh, I didn’t make them specially for you. As I told you before, I don’t have spies reporting to me, Corporal, so I only had a minute or two between hearing of your arrival and coming to greet you; not nearly enough time to either make or cook _pâte à choux_.  
  
“They were simply left over from my breakfast, I’m afraid. As my mornings start so much earlier than they used to nowadays, I often find myself with a few spare minutes in which I can test my skills in the kitchen.”  
  
“I’d say they’re none too shabby,” Alasdair says, “although that isn’t saying much, because I’ve never eaten _pâte à choux_ in my life before now, so that could have been the worst example of it ever made and I wouldn’t know the difference either way.”’  
  
“You can’t give with one hand without taking away with the other, can you, Corporal?” The prince chuckles, and then motions towards the rose-patterned sofa with his plate. “Would you care to take a seat before you give your report?”  
  
Alasdair’s thoughts dwell, yet again, on his shirt, and the further crumpling thereof. He shakes his head. “I’d prefer to stand if you don’t mind, sir.”  
  
“Not at all.” The prince drops off the plate, pours himself a glass of wine, and then turns all of his attention onto Alasdair. “So what has your brother discovered?”  
  
“He’s still not been able to identify the poison,” Alasdair says, “but he has one more test to try. He’s not very hopeful about it, though.”  
  
The prince blinks very slowly at him. “You’ve come to tell me that you have nothing to tell me?”  
  
“That’s about the long and the short of it, sir.” It does seem ridiculous when Alasdair hears it put that way, so he’s quick to add, “There was something else I wanted to discuss with you, though.”  
  
The prince opens his mouth, but he’s interrupted before he can make a reply by a soft knocking at the door. At his shout of, “Enter,” a servant shuffles in, head deferentially lowered.  
  
He says not a word, but the swiftly bobbed bow he offers speaks his intent clearly to the prince, it seems.  
  
The prince sighs deeply. “Luncheon is about to be served, so the rest of our conversation will unfortunately have to be postponed to another day. Unless,” his gaze drifts to one side, and ultimately settles itself on Alasdair’s left ear, “you would like to join me? We can resume our talk as soon as we’ve eaten, then.”  
  
Alasdair might have made it through a pastry unscathed, but an actual meal is likely beyond his abilities. It’s bound to be disastrous, but, much as he’d prefer to say, ‘I’d rather chew on broken glass, if it’s all the same to you,’ that wouldn’t help him advance his plan one iota.  
  
Instead, he plasters a fake smile on his face and says, ”I’d love to, thank you, sir.”

 

 


	19. Chapter 19

The dining room is decked out in the dark red and gold of the Imperial flag, and the sole hint of any other colour is provided by a tall vase filled with bright autumnal flowers, set atop the dark oak table which dominates the room. It’s so long that Alasdair suspects that the only way someone seated at one end could talk with someone at the other is via semaphore.  
  
Although he had not heard or seen the prince communicate in any way with the servant who had fetched them from the drawing room, there are six places set, forming a small island of glass- and silverware at the very centre of the table’s vast sea.  
  
Alasdair eyes it warily, trying to dredge up memories of the diagrams of place settings that Da had drawn on his chalkboard. He has vague impressions of varying sizes of spoon, and recalls his derision upon discovering that the nobility required a special sort of fork in order to successfully negotiate the complex issue of transporting fish betwixt plate and mouth, but as he'd not thought at the time that he’d ever have reason to sit down for a formal meal, he hadn’t concentrated hard enough for any of the details to sink in.  
  
He can’t even remember if he should work through the knives and forks from the outside in or the inside out.  
  
Dimly, he hears the prince saying, “I thought you could sit alongside me,” which is preferable, he supposes, to being cast adrift to make his way as best he can amongst the rest of the royal family in residence, but the thought of having the prince's sharp eyes close enough to bear witness to Alasdair’s inevitable fumbles over the cutlery isn’t exactly reassuring.  
  
His building dread intensifies when the door at the other side of the room swings open and the rest of their luncheon companions start to drift in.  
  
Each one of them is dressed in a fashion better suited, Alasdair would imagine, to a night at the opera than what must be an everyday meal in their temporary home: the princes all wearing frock coats and cravats, and Princess Madeline, a lilac dress with a hoop skirt so wide that she only just manages to squeeze it through the doorframe. Perhaps because he’s now so badly outnumbered, and thus more obviously out of place, they make Alasdair feel underdressed to a degree the prince never has, his best shirt and trousers notwithstanding.  
  
Although, Princes Alfred and Feliciano both smile at him, and Princess Madeline drops into a curtsey as she did the last time they met, it is the unwelcoming sight of Prince Lovino’s superciliously curled top lip that Alasdair fixates on. He’s not exactly backward in coming forward, as a rule, but he finds himself feeling tongue-tied and uncomfortable in his own skin,  
  
He has no idea what they might consider suitable talk for the table, and he can only imagine them laughing about him later, and how he had nothing to say worth listening to.  
  
Beyond Alasdair’s dry tongue, his throat tightens, and a cold sweat breaks out on his brow.  
  
The prince presses two fingers, very gently, against the back of Alasdair’s wrist. “We could always dine in private instead, if you’d prefer,” he says in an undertone. “Just the two of us.”  
  
“God’s above, yes,” Alasdair says, quiet too, but no less heartfelt for it. “Yes, _please_.”

 

 

* * *

  


In the time it takes them to walk between the dining room and conservatory, a small, round table has been set up there, and a fire built in the brazier beside it.  
  
Alasdair is relieved enough to see that there’s only a single knife, fork, and glass set out in front of each of the two chairs at the table – and also to be free of the other princes and princess – that he fears that he might not sound suitably contrite when he says, “I’m sorry for dragging you away from your family.”  
  
The prince sounds genuinely unconcerned, regardless. “Don’t be,” he says. “We dine together twice a day, every day. Missing one meal won’t harm either me or them. You, on the hand, looked as though you were about to pass out at the prospect of sitting down with us.”  
  
“Well, I wouldn’t go that far,” Alasdair says. If his head had, perhaps, started to swim slightly before the prince made his offer, then that’s between him and his subconscious, and no business at all of the prince’s. “I can’t say I was looking forward to it, though. I’m a man of simple tastes when it comes to dining.”  
  
“I imagined you would be,” the prince says, looking insufferably pleased with himself, “so I took the liberty of asking that we be given only one of the dishes that the twins and my cousins will be served. I think you’ll find it to your liking.”  
  
A nod of his head sends the servant who had accompanied them down from the dining room scurrying back out into the hallway, and then the prince strides purposefully over to the table. After a ridiculous flourish of his hands and a slight dip of his body that looks somewhat like a bow, he pulls back one of the chairs there just as he would, Alasdair imagines, for someone who was wearing a dress as voluminous as his sister’s and thus found it difficult to seat themselves without that sort of extra courtesy.  
  
As Alasdair is perfectly capable of manoeuvring himself between a standing and sitting position completely unaided, and doesn’t want the prince to think otherwise for so much as a moment, he takes the chair on the opposite side.  
  
If the prince is insulted at all by this snub, he hides it well. His smug smile does not slip, and he sits down on the chair he’d withdrawn with such conviction that it would be easy to believe that that had been his intention from the start.  
  
After he and Alasdair have sniffed, tasted and then had a small disagreement over the degree of smokiness of yet another variety of wine, the servant returns bearing two large plates, which he carefully places before them before retreating again, all in perfect silence.  
  
Alasdair had been expecting the food to be unrecognisable as such, made from the sort of expensive ingredients that he’s only ever read about, not seen, and arranged in an artful way that places more importance on aesthetics than decent portion size as he’s heard is the current fashion in Gallia.  
  
What it looks like, however, is meat and two veg, just like he and his siblings used to eat most nights when Ma and Da were both still with them.  
  
Granted, the minature carrots have been trimmed so they’re all exactly the same size, the potatoes are lightly browned and crisp instead of charred black lumps – Da never could quite get the hang of potatoes – and the slices of meat appear to be entirely gristle free, but it still looks far more homely and appetising than anything he ever would have believed could be prepared in a prince’s kitchen.  
  
“It’s a peasant recipe that comes from the region of Gallia where my maternal grandfather was raised,” the prince says. “They call it _Gigot d'agneau de sept heures_.”  
  
The name causes Alasdair to regard the lamb in a new, dubious light. “Seven hours?” he asks. “Surely that doesn’t mean they cook it for that long, does it? It’d be tough as an old boot.”  
  
“To the contrary, it’s always exquisitely tender,” the prince says. “Go on, please try some and see for yourself.”  
  
Alasdair cuts himself a tiny sliver, just to show willing. It turns out to be rich, succulent, and, as promised, disintegrates almost the instant he closes his mouth around it.  
  
“Your Gallian peasants obviously eat a lot better than the Brittonic ones do, sir,” he says, cutting off and then spearing a second, far larger piece of the lamb.  
  
“And what do Brittonic peasants generally eat?” the prince says as he picks up his own knife and fork.  
  
“If the rest of them are anything like me, then mostly porridge and stew made from the scraps of meat left over after other people have eaten all the good bits.”  
  
The prince makes a disgusted noise deep at the back of his throat. “You’re no peasant, Corporal. You’re a trained professional.”  
  
“Do you know what guard training consists of, sir? It’s a week of sword fighting lessons with one of the sergeants, and then they give you a book of Devan laws which you’re supposed to memorise. They usually waive the second requirement, though, because most of the recruits can't read.  
  
“So long as you’ve got a high enough boredom threshold that you can stand patrolling for eight hours with bugger all else to do most of the time, and have enough sense to hold a sword at the end that isn’t pointy, you’re pretty much guaranteed to get taken on. Added to which, the pay’s pretty crap, so, as you might imagine, we’re not exactly the cream of the crop, on the whole.  
  
“Half of us just like that we get paid for roughing people up on occasion, and the other half wanted to join the army and couldn’t, and reckoned that the guards were the next best thing.”  
  
Alasdair wants to swallow back the words the second they leave his mouth, not because they’re hyperbolic or unfair – although both of those are true – but because they cause the prince to pause in his eating, and stare across the table at him with wide, wondering eyes.  
  
He inwardly curses his runaway tongue, and then tries to make light of the matter. “I hope you’re not trying to figure out which one of the two describes me.”  
  
“No, I…” The prince’s gaze drops to his hands. “I was just thinking how unfair it all is that there are people who desperately want to join the Imperial ranks but are kept from them, when I was made Legate at twenty-three through no merit of my own, and having no desire whatsoever to serve.”  
  
Alasdair presumes that that wasn’t what he’d been thinking at all, but is grateful to discover that the prince is apparently tactful enough to pretend it was. “You didn’t want to join the army, sir?” he asks, eagerly jumping on the chance to shift the topic of their conversation onto the prince.  
  
The prince chuckles humourlessly. “I didn’t even pick up a sword until I was nineteen,” he says. “I’m not sure how much of this is public knowledge outside Gallia itself, but my mother and father became estranged not long after Alfred and Madeline were born. My father kept Gabriel and Isabel with him in Lutetia and Maman moved back to her family estate in Augustodunum with the twins and myself.  
  
“My father took absolutely no interest in our upbringing for fourteen years, so Maman felt free have me educated as she saw fit. I learnt cookery and needlework, diplomacy and natural philosophy, four living languages and two dead ones, the harpsichord and marksmanship, and many other subjects besides.  
  
“When I came of age, Father called me back to Lutetia and was horrified to discover how _neglected_ I’d been. He imported two of the best sword masters from Roma, and I spent every day learning sword play, and every night studying war strategies. After four years, I still hadn’t made enough progress to please him, so he decided to give me command of a legion so I could hone my craft on the field.  
  
“Or die trying. I think he quite hoped I’d get myself killed in battle, because my inadequacy in the martial arts wasn’t the only reason he was disappointed in me.”  
  
The prince’s last words lie heavy in the air, like a black cloud descended over the table, and the man himself grimaces, leading Alasdair to believe that he too had said more than he’d meant to.  
  
He wants to offer his sympathies or at least commiserations, but such the idea of a father ever even contemplating such a thing is so far outside his realm of experience that he has no clue what best to say.  
  
As their talk has wound its way around to the army anyway, he should perhaps use the opportunity to segue into the topic of the prince’s time in Germania, but he can’t bring himself to do so either, not after _that_.  
  
He’s sure he’ll have a chance again later – or be sure to manufacture one, if not – so he decides lets the whole subject drop for the time being, and reapplies himself to his food.  
  
A short while later, the prince starts eating again, too, and when their plates are both cleared, the prince leans back in his chair and tries out a tentative smile.  
  
“Do you happen to have the next hour or so free, Corporal?” he asks.  
  
“I’ve got all day free, sir,” says Alasdair, who is willing to dedicate it entirely to his plan, if required.  
  
“I’m glad to hear it,” the prince says, his tone lightening once more. “Well, I’ll call for brandy to help settle our stomachs, and then we can take a little walk, if you fancy. There’s something I would very much like to show you.”

 

 


	20. Chapter 20

Alasdair had supposed that the prince would want to show off the grotto – which had finally been pronounced complete, Arthur had told them at dinner the previous day – but he does not head out into the gardens, but deeper into the palace instead.  
  
They descend a winding staircase at the back of the kitchens, pass through several corridors that ultimately lead, the prince informs him, to the food stores and wine cellar respectively, and eventually fetch up at a gnarled wooden door, banded with black iron, which by Alasdair’s reckoning sits directly beneath the palace’s entrance hall.  
  
The prince takes hold of the door’s handle, but then hesitates in turning it, his expression growing pensive. Alasdair can only think that he’s perhaps begun to reconsider the wisdom in leading him here for some reason.  
  
“Have you uncovered King Llewellyn’s final resting place, sir?” Alasdair asks when the silence starts to stretch uncomfortably.  
  
The prince starts like a man roused suddenly from a dream, and then turns his head to give Alasdair a baffled look. “What?”  
  
“The songs say he was buried beneath the old castle that used to stand on this spot,” Alasdair says blandly. “All the ones that don’t claim he was buried in Mancunium, at least. Or Luguvalium. Or that he never really died but was taken off to the Otherworld to live with the fae.”  
  
The prince lets out a short breath of laughter. “I hate to disappoint you, Corporal,” he says, “but this door doesn’t lead to a fantastical realm, only…” He shakes his head. “Well, it would be better if I just show you, as I said.”  
  
He pushes open the door, revealing a vast room with a high arched ceiling, almost as cavernous as the hall above it.  
  
Alasdair’s first, rather dazed thought, is that he pities whichever servant has to come – every morning, no doubt, whether or not the room is due to be used – and light all of the many lamps that line the bare stone walls. His second, third, fourth and each thought afterwards are not a great deal more coherent, but are at least germane.  
  
His gaze shifts as restlessly as his mind, not wanting to settle for too long on any one thing just in case he misses his opportunity to look at everything else.  
  
It returns most often to the three racks mounted on the wall to his right, each one containing sufficient swords to outfit an entire shift of guards. There are sabres and rapiers, short swords and long, each one of them oiled and gleaming with not a single superfluous jewel or overly ornamented cross guard in sight.  
  
The contents of the open-faced cabinet on the opposite wall are worth more than Alasdair will likely earn in his lifetime, even if he managed to learn to somehow go without sleep entirely. Five rifles; he's never seen as many gathered together in one place before. Even a simple pistol is beyond the reach of anyone else he knows, save Amelia.  
  
Training dummies and targets line the wall furthest from the door, and the closest one is bare except for a stand upon which a suit of armour is mounted; one etched with a repeating motif of fleur-de-lis on the greaves and vambraces, and embossed with a howling Roman wolf on its breastplate.  
  
“It’s mine, from the war,” the prince says when he notices where Alasdair’s eyes have settled. “Completely useless, of course, considering the firepower involved in modern warfare, but appearances must be maintained. Even in the heat of battle, it wouldn’t do for a Legate to be mistaken for one of the rank and file soldiers, after all.”  
  
“Do you still use it, sir?” Alasdair asks.  
  
“It’s lighter than you’d expect, and more comfortable than I ever thought possible when it was first presented to me, but I need a quarter hour and the help of two servants to strap me into it, nonetheless. I have so little time to practice my swordwork nowadays that I can’t really afford the delay.”  
  
“You still train with the sword?” Given what the prince had said about his father earlier, Alasdair would have assumed that he’d gladly given it up the very minute he was no longer under the king’s direct control.  
  
“I may not have cared for the regimen my father set for me, but after four years, it had become a habit, all the same. And habits are hard to break.” The prince smiles ruefully, before striding off towards the sword racks. “Now, I had thought this would suit you,” he says, unhooking what looks to be a claymore. “Why don’t you give it a try and see if you agree?”  
  
As Alasdair is far more accustomed to fighting with a short sword, he has his misgivings, but all of those doubts melt away the moment he closes his hands around the hilt. They fit the grip as though it was forged to his exact specifications, his fingers cradled snugly in the grooves already worn into the leather strap wound around it. When he swings it experimentally, it _sings_ through the air, so perfectly balanced that it feels like a natural extension of his arms; almost weightless despite its length.  
  
“You do!” the prince says. “You don’t have to say so; I can see it in your eyes. I want you to keep it, Corporal. It’ll just continue to sit around here otherwise, gathering dust. It’s too heavy for me.”  
  
Alasdair never wants to put it down. “Thank you, sir,” he says.  
  
“That was far simpler than I was expecting.” The prince laughs shakily. “I thought you’d consider it charity and refuse to accept it.”  
  
“If you’d offered me anything else, I likely would.” Alasdair shrugs. “But when something’s as beautiful as _this_ , pesky things like scruples don’t seem half so important as they usually do, you ken?”  
  
“Oh, I understand perfectly, Corporal; believe me.” The prince spins quickly on his heel and heads back towards the sword rack. “Now, would you care to join me in that sparring match we talked about at the guardhouse the other day?”  
  
Alasdair contemplates his shirt and how effortlessly it could be ruined if he was struck with a sword, and also the charge of treason which would be brought against him if he happened to injure the prince.  
  
Such considerations seem unimportant when the alternative means that he can test his new sword in combat.  
  
At his nod, the prince grabs hold of a rapier and then wheels on him, all in one rapid, fluid movement.  
  
His first assault is diffident, experimental, and easy to parry, but the next is made with such speed and conviction that Alasdair struggles to deflect it.  
  
The prince presses forward ruthlessly, making no concessions to the fact that they’re armed with edged blades, and twists and turns so swiftly that Alasdair scarcely has chance to register him moving before preparing his own blocks and counters. He can’t look away or stop thinking for even a second, for fear of his defences being broken.  
  
Laughter bubbles up in Alasdair’s chest, because it makes him feel as though he’s sparring with _Caitlin_ again. It makes him feel like a teenager again, pitting himself against the only person who has ever been able to match – and often surpass – him whilst sparring.  
  
It makes him careless with his body in a way he hasn’t since those days, too, and when the prince aims a strike at his head, he dodges just a fraction too sharply, extends one leg just a fraction too far, and something in his back gives way.  
  
Pain rips through him like a heated knife, dropping him to his knees.  
  
He hears the prince’s sword clatter to the floor, and within the space of a heartbeat, the man’s hands are upon him, clutching desperately at his shoulders. “What happened, Alasdair?” he asks, his voice turned shrill with panic. “Are you hurt?”  
  
Alasdair wants to tell him that the pain is no new thing, that it will pass in time, but he can’t find the words. Can’t even find the breath.

The prince’s grip tightens slightly.  “Do you think you can stand?”  
  
Even considering the prospect sends Alasdair’s stomach into a spasm, gorge rising in his throat, but he knows he’s still _capable_ of doing so, although he might _prefer_ to do nothing of the sort. His head feels too heavy to nod, so he simply lets it fall until his chin rests against his chest.  
  
“Then we should get you somewhere more comfortable,” the prince says, dropping into crouch in front of him. “If you lean on me, the journey should be easier.”

 

 

* * *

 

  
Their progress may be easier with the prince’s shoulder under Alasdair’s arm, but it’s still slow and halting.  
  
Normally, Alasdair would have made a point to count his steps so that he could build a more detailed picture of the palace’s layout, but he can’t quite summon the concentration necessary for such a complicated undertaking. Instead, he allows himself to be led like a lamb up stairs and down hallways unnumbered, not trusting the prince to guide him so much as lacking the wherewithal to do anything else.  
  
Eventually, they fetch up in a room that might as well be bare for all Alasdair can see of it; his eyes are too blurred with tears to make out more than vague colours and even vaguer shapes.  
  
“Here,” the prince says, nudging at Alasdair’s chest. “Sit down.”  
  
Alasdair sinks down gratefully, and is even more grateful that the prince has steered him towards something soft. Something which yields beneath him with a soft rustle of fabric and groan of springs. Something that he thinks might be a bed.  
  
The realisation sets an alarm bell to pealing at the back of Alasdair’s mind, but it’s faint enough that he can ignore it with ease.  
  
The prince’s palms settle, very lightly, against Alasdair’s knees, shaping themselves around the curve of them. “Did you sprain a muscle?” he asks.  
  
Alasdair sucks in a deep lungful of air, and manages to gasp out, “Something like that.”  
  
“I have a liniment that might help,” the prince says. “I’ll fetch it for you.”  
  
When the warmth of the prince’s hands lifts, and Alasdair hears him leave the room, he swipes at his eyes until they clear sufficiently that he can take stock of his surroundings.  
  
He does indeed appear to be in a bedroom, but it’s one that’s so simply furnished that it must be intended for guests. Besides the wide bed, the furniture consists of little more than an unadorned chest of drawers, wardrobe and desk; the sole decorative touch is a plain blue vase filled with Gallian roses.  
  
If this was the prince’s bedroom, Alasdair would find that sight troubling.  
  
He relaxes a little, but only mentally; the muscles of his back are still pulled so taut that he fears, irrationally, that they might snap if he attempted to flex them.  
  
The snick of a door being closed somewhere behind him heralds the prince’s return, but as Alasdair cannot turn to face him, he has to track the man’s movements by the muffled sound of his footsteps crossing the carpeted floor.  
  
Ten of them bring him into sight again, another three into arm’s reach, whereupon he drops a small ceramic jar into Alasdair’s lap. “My own apothecary made this for me, to sooth aching muscles,” he says.  
  
Alasdair unscrews the jar’s lid, and smiles when he recognises at least one of the scents wafting up from it. “Arnica,” he tells the prince. “Dyl uses it for the same reason.”  
  
He moves one hand to his shirt front, but the strange, garbled noise the prince makes in response makes him freeze before he can finish unfastening the first button.  
  
“I didn’t intend for you to…” The prince’s cheeks flood with colour. “I’ll just… I’ll give you a moment to apply it in peace, Corporal.”  
  
He beats a hasty retreat to the desk, and soon busies himself by rifling through the pile of papers stacked there.  
  
The question Dylan had asked him in their kitchen that morning echoes through Alasdair’s head, though imbued with a mocking tone that his brother’s had lacked.  
  
Alasdair had been extremely shy about disrobing when he was younger, but a decade of having to change near daily in the guardhouse locker room had long since cured him of any bashfulness regarding it. He hadn’t even paused to speculate whether it might be imprudent to start shucking his shirt in front of the prince, because he’s so fucking clueless when it comes to these matters that he doesn’t have the good sense that the gods gave to squirrels.  
  
In hindsight, he probably should have realised that he's so ill-equipped on that score that his plan was nigh on unworkable from the start. Still, it was done, and he has no choice to muddle along as best he can now and hope against hope that nothing else goes wrong.  
  
He unbuttons the rest of the shirt and slides it from his shoulders with no further issues, but when he attempts to reach around to rub a dab of the cool liniment into his back, a wave of fresh agony lances through him with such ferocity that it looses an involuntary sob from his throat and his vision momentarily blacks out.  
  
The prince is at his side in an instant. “What’s wrong, Corporal?” he asks, his voice on the cusp of breaking once again.  
  
Alasdair doesn’t want to tell him, because no matter how much he might wish to, he can’t deny that what Gabriella said was true, and that makes this situation so uncertain, so precarious, that he doesn’t want to risk unbalancing it in any way.  
  
But he also knows that if he doesn’t apply the arnica soon and get some rest, he’ll likely end up bedridden for the rest of the week, if not more.  
  
He doesn’t want to tell him, but he can’t afford to take that much time off work, for the investigation’s sake as well as his purse’s.  
  
“I can’t bend well enough to put the liniment on myself.”  
  
It looks as though the prince no more cared to hear those words than Alasdair did to say them. His hands ball into fists at his sides, the corners of his mouth and his eyebrows both descend, and until he finally, and very stiffly says, “I can do it for you, Corporal,” Alasdair fears that he might actually have angered the man.  
  
The prince averts his eyes as Alasdair gingerly stretches himself out prostrate on the bed, but his eventual shocked gasp makes the moment his attention returns humiliatingly apparent.  
  
“I was stabbed, sir,” Alasdair says, praying that that will suffice to satisfy the prince’s curiosity.  
  
As luck is clearly not on Alasdair’s side today – and the prince has never met a prying question he doesn’t like – it does not. “What with? That doesn’t look like any knife or sword wound I’ve ever seen.”  
  
The only way Alasdair can talk about it, even twelve years on, is to pretend he’s giving a report to his captain: concise, blunt, and sticking to nothing but the bare facts.  
  
“When I was seventeen,” he says, “I tried to break up a fight that had started up outside the Lost Antler one night, and got a knife in the back for my troubles.”  
  
Another couple of inches to the left, Mr Morton had said, another couple of inches, and it probably would have severed his spine.  
  
“It likely wouldn’t have done me too much harm, considering, but the tip broke off in one of my ribs and they had to open me up to get it out.”  
.  
And old Mr Morton was little better than a fucking butcher. He’d dug in deep and hard, seemingly not caring what further damage he might do with his scalpel, and he didn’t have Gabriella’s steady hand for stitching, either.  
  
Ma had religiously applied her arnica, and all manner of other herbs that were meant to reduce swelling and promote healing, but Alasdair’s skin and muscles still didn’t knit together properly, as the huge knot of scar tissue he’d been left with would attest.  
  
“If I’m careful, it doesn’t usually give me too much bother beyond a twinge or two when the weather gets really cold.”  
  
He should have warmed himself up properly before trying to spar with the prince. Before undergoing the physical tests he had to pass in order to be enlisted into the army.  
  
He can only ever be wise in retrospect, it seems.  
  
“How…?”  the prince starts, but the question is doomed to remain hanging, because the rest of his words disintegrate into a low sigh.  
  
He is quiet and still for so long afterwards that Alasdair wonders if he might have started regretting his offer, but then, in a sudden flurry, he lunges forward and scoops up the jar Alasdair had discarded beside him on the mattress.  
  
Alasdair closes his eyes and tenses in anticipation of his touch, but when it comes, it's so gentle that he could almost pretend it wasn’t there.  
  
It isn't frightening, after all.

 

 


	21. Chapter 21

Consciousness returns to Alasdair in a lurching rush which leaves his heart pounding against his ribcage and his breath caught in his throat.  
  
For a time, he forces himself to lie silent and completely still, ears straining for any sign of what might have awoken him with such violence. By the time his pulse has slowed to its normal resting rate, and he has heard nothing but the quiet tick of a nearby clock, the tension finally seeps away from his body.  
  
Pain rushes in to take its place, though his unintentional nap has done much to diminish it; in acuteness, at least, as its spread has increased. His scar is a stinging nucleus from which thin tendrils radiate, some snaking up his spine to set a dull ache at the nape of his neck and others trailing down the back of his right leg to cramp his toes.    
  
He curls his toes in and then stretches them out, right leg then left; tenses then relaxes his calf and thigh muscles; rolls his shoulder blades together and then apart. Toes to shoulders, shoulders to toes, he repeats each small motion deliberately and methodically until they become easier, if not entirely effortless.  
  
Afterwards, he feels limber enough to attempt a more ambitious manoeuvre, and so he slides his hands flat beneath his chest and very haltingly pushes himself up into a kneeling position. His stomach pitches along with the movement, but, thankfully, a resurgence of his earlier nausea does not follow, and he feels cautiously optimistic that he hasn't done himself any real, lasting damage in his recklessness.  
  
With his physical state improved and assessed to the best of his abilities, Alasdair feels able to cast his attention outwards once more.  
  
The urgent distraction of his injury had made his first survey of the room the prince had guided him to somewhat less thorough than it ought to have been, and thus on his second, he observes several details he had previously overlooked.  
  
There are several other pieces of furniture – a long settee by the window, low sets of drawers on either side of the bed, a small wooden chest with its curved lid left partially open – but they're plain, just like the rest, and he sees nothing out of the ordinary about them. Far more interesting, though, is the large sheet of paper tacked to the wall above the desk on which a map of Deva is printed. He's never before seen one that represents not only Old Town, East- and Highgate, but even the small cluster of houses to the south of the town, the palace miles to the north, and he wonders if it might have been specially commissioned.  
  
From there, his eyes drop to the desk itself, and he notes that the papers which had been strewn there have since been tidied away. In fact, there appear to have been several changes made to the room whilst he slept: his discarded shirt is nowhere in sight; his boots, he belatedly realises, are no longer on his feet where they should be; the shadows have an early evening's length; and a richly brocaded armchair has been placed near the side of the bed.  
  
The jar of arnica liniment has been placed on the seat of that armchair, and Alasdair has just started to reach out for it when the faint sound of footsteps echoing down the hallway beyond the bedroom distracts him and stays his hand.  
  
They stop directly outside the room's door, and its handle jiggles slightly but does not start turning.  
  
"I think I can find my own way from here. I make this particular journey thrice daily, after all."  
  
It's the prince's voice, and though muffled by wood, thick walls, and distance, Alasdair can still discern a hint of irritation darkening his tone.  
  
"You've got him in there, haven't you? The guard." And that, Alasdair presumes, is Prince Lovino. He doesn't recognise the voice, per se, but he'd like to believe that there's only one of the castle's inhabitants who would spit out 'guard' with so much repugnance that he sounded like a cat bringing up a hairball. "That's short work, even for you. I can't believe you've bedded him already."  
  
"I haven't ' _bedded_ ' him," the prince says, doing his own impression of a regurgitating feline on the third word. "I would _never_ bed a commoner; you know that."  
  
Alasdair finds that oddly insulting. Not the confirmation that the prince has no desire to pursue him no matter what his persistent staring might seem to suggest otherwise – it's nothing but a relief to know that he won't have to worry about how best to guard himself against that sort of sally – but that he'd referred to him in such a way. And after he'd seemed so horrified that Alasdair might consider himself a peasant, even in jest, to boot.  
  
It's a stark reminder of something that - despite the fine clothes, palace, and many servants hanging on his every command - Alasdair hadn't noticed he'd started to forget about the prince until this very moment.  
  
The man might seem to be offering some sort of friendship, sharing his food, and his wine, and his weapons, but he's obviously still so aware of the huge gulf of birth between them that such overtures can be nothing but hollow promises. He clearly considers Alasdair interesting in some way, but, as Alasdair had suspected at the beginning of their acquaintance, it's probably no more than the sort of shallow fascination that any sort of novel oddity would inspire. A horse that can count, a dog with two tails, a _commoner_ who can read, write and speak two languages; likely he'd find the former just as intriguing as the latter.  
  
"So you always tell me," Prince Lovino says. "But then I've heard you weren't quite so discerning when you were in the army."  
  
Alasdair shuffles further up the bed and cocks his head towards the door to lessen the risk that he might miss a single word the prince has to say in response to that accusation. What the prince might tell a close relative about such things, he thinks, would likely be more candid than anything he might share with Alasdair when he does eventually figure out a way of raising the subject.  
  
"Don't tell me you believe those idiotic rumours!" the prince snarls.  
  
"I didn't, but now you're acting like a fool over a fucking _guard_ , and—"  
  
"The corporal injured himself, and needed somewhere quiet to rest for a while. That's all that happened, cousin. Now, if you'll excuse me..."  
  
The prince bursts into the room so suddenly that Alasdair hasn't the chance to reposition himself so that it isn't quite so obvious that he'd been eavesdropping on the man's conversation, never mind snatch up a sheet to cover his bare chest.  
  
When he catches sight of him, the prince blanches, his mouth frozen in an 'o' of shock.  
  
"I was just –" He hurriedly gulps back whatever he was about to say, slams the door closed behind him, and then approaches Alasdair with evident wariness. "I thought you were asleep, Corporal," he says, his voice lowered to barely more than a whisper.  
  
"I was," Alasdair says in the same tone, and then, slightly louder when he hears Prince Lovino stomping away, "until about five minutes ago, anyway."  
  
"Then I suppose you heard... Well, of course you did, neither of us were taking any great care to be quiet, and..." The prince pauses for a time, closes his eyes and takes deep, steadying breaths. Alasdair assumes he's trying to gather his thoughts sufficiently that he can make it through an entire sentence without stuttering into silence, but when he starts speaking again afterwards, his next attempt isn't any more successful than any of his previous ones. "What I told my cousin was true, I would never take a lover who..."  
  
"Who's so far beneath you?" Alasdair finishes for him, prompted more by the feeling of peevishness the prince had inspired in him rather than any pity for the man, despite his obvious discomfort.  
  
The prince winces. "Is of a much lower social status," he says, seeming to find his words with ease this time. "I've seen many of my circle embark on such relationships, and they never last. The hurt, it seems, is never fairly apportioned when they do end, either, and I have no wish to..." He clenches his jaw tightly, and then lifts his chin until their gazes lock. "You said before that you were troubled by the rumours being spread amongst your neighbours, so please let me reassure you now, Corporal, that I have no designs on you."  
  
It's the perfect opening that Alasdair had been hoping for, unwittingly given through no effort of his own, and he quickly takes advantage of it before the conversational tide has chance to turn against his favour. "They're not troubling me right now, sir. I'm more concerned with the other rumour your cousin mentioned. I presume he was talking about that centurion you supposedly took up with in Germania?"  
  
"You heard tell of it from your sister, I suppose." The prince's lips quirk upwards at one corner. "Let me guess, she told you that my old command are convinced that I used the man ruthlessly and then did away with him in the middle of the night when I inevitably grew tired of him?"  
  
At Alasdair's nod, the prince continues with: "He took me under his wing when I was newly-appointed Legate, and I respected him a great deal. We were friends, certainly, but never more than that.  
  
"Close enough, though, that when – for personal reasons I hope you understand that I cannot break his trust and share – he decided he had no choice but to desert, he came to me looking for aid.

"I didn't just turn a blind eye as he'd hoped, I actively helped his escape, he meant that much to me. When my father found out what I'd done, he ordered the other Legates and Tribunes who knew the truth of the matter to never speak a word of it to anyone, and then sent me home in disgrace.  
  
"There I remained in Lutetia, left to my own devices and waiting for the axe to fall for months on end, until he finally decided on a suitable punishment for me. And so," he finishes, his crooked mouth smoothing out into a true smile, "you find me here. Suffering my suitable punishment."  
  
The prince certainly sounds sincere, and his story seems to fit the few facts Alasdair knows, but he finds he cannot trust it, all the same. The prince has just lied too often before for him to believe even half of what he says.  
  
He's known that from the start, and he has to wonder now why he ever thought it was a good idea to try and seek answers from the one source who, potentially, has the most to conceal.

Another wasted day, during an investigation which has already had far too many of them.

He sighs deeply, and begins slow, careful process of unfolding his legs out from beneath him. "I should really be getting going, sir," he says.

If he sets off now, he could perhaps hit the tail end of the clinic's visiting hours, and do something in the smallest way productive by updating himself on the poisoned woman's progress first hand.

"Of course," the prince says flatly, his smile fading. "I'll call for the carriage straight away."

Alasdair snorts. "I thought we'd already agreed that it wasn't a good idea for me to arrive home in one of your carriages again, sir. Not even," he says, because the prince looks set to argue against him, "the barouche."

"You can't seriously be planning on walking to Old Town," the prince says, sounding slightly petulant. "You could barely move not four hours ago."

Alasdair suspects that each and every step will be difficult to make - if, thankfully, no longer agonising - and he'll have to stop and rest for a spell several times along the way, but he will manage eventually. "It'll help my back," he says. "There's really nothing better for stretching out the muscles than walking. And, besides, how else could I get there? Though I've often wished it, I can't actually fly."

"I'm sure a decent night's sleep would be even better for your back. You could always stay here until morning and travel home then." The prince holds up a quelling hand when Alasdair starts to protest, and then adds, "I know you worry about rumours no matter what you might say, Corporal, but no-one knows you're still here but me and Lovino, and he'll doubtless keep quiet about it in the belief that he'd be protecting what little remains of my good name. There's a little room off this one which I think was meant for the use of a body servant when the palace was first built. I can sleep in that so even the servants won't know that I didn't spend the night in my own bed."

All of which is frivolous nonsense wrapped around a single kernel of interest. Despite their surprising lack of ornamentation, these must therefore be the prince's chambers.

Alasdair's eyes flit towards the vase he had dismissed as unimportant earlier, and the prince must notice the movement despite its speed, because he says, "There weren't any Gallian roses in there on the night of the party M. Martinez attended. I've only asked for some to be brought up here in the last few days."

He wouldn't say anything else, of course. There really is no point talking to the man about any aspect of the murder case he might be involved in. Hardly any point to it at all, because there's every chance that each word they've ever shared has been spoken, as it were, by the puppet rather than the puppeteer, so it's a struggle for Alasdair to summon up enough energy to voice even his soft, inflectionless, "I see, sir."

The prince studies his face intently for a moment. "And I see you intend to refuse my latest offer, too," he concludes. "If you are going to walk, what would you say to having company so you have someone to lean on if needs be."

Alasdair doesn't suppose for so much a second that he's suggesting to send one of his servants along. "Having a prince walk me to my door will cause no less of a stir than one of his carriages, sir."

The prince's eyes narrow. "I am capable of presenting myself in such a manner that I won't attract any undue attention, but as you seem determined to prevent me from being helpful, come what may, I doubt you'll let that sway you," he says. "Will you allow me to visit you at the guardhouse tomorrow morning before your shift starts, at least, so I can check how your health is faring?"

It's not really in Alasdair's power to stop him from doing so, and, besides he still has no clue where his shirt and boots have been hidden and he wouldn't put it past the prince to hold them hostage until he agrees.

"That shouldn't be a problem, sir," he says.

 

 


	22. Chapter 22

Alasdair's back is still stiff, Michael awoke with a cold that provided him with ample excuse to shirk his duties and remain in bed for the rest of the day, and Dylan had announced over breakfast that he'd finally exhausted all of his tests and still hadn't been able to identify the dart's poison.  
  
The morning has already held so many disappointments that it feels somehow inevitable for Alasdair to discover that there's yet one more awaiting him when he arrives at the guardhouse, an hour early for the start of his shift.  
  
Guards are swarming out from the tower like ants fleeing from an upset anthill to dash hither and thither around the courtyard, peering around corners, under carts, and behind the few pots filled with scrubby, half-dead plants that were a past captain's sad attempt at bringing some 'much needed colour to the place'.  
  
The only point of calm is Angus, who is watching the bustle from the sidelines with a look of wry amusement on his face.  
  
"So, what's happened?" Alasdair asks as he joins him. "Did Mrs Murphy's chickens escape again?"  
  
"Naw," Angus says, "but my brother did. Walker noticed his cell was empty when he did his rounds this morning."  
  
"And they didn't think to check your pockets first before they started ransacking the place?"  
  
Alasdair grins at him and digs a jocular elbow into Angus' ribs, but Angus remains unmoved by both.  
  
"I didn't help him, if that's what you're asking," Angus says grimly. "But I can't say that I'm not glad that he found his way out of here, either. I'm sure he had nothing to do with the murder; he didn't need to be locked up all this time."  
  
"He _did_ steal that purse and ring, though, Gus," Alasdair points out.  
  
Angus' top lip curls. "That was a decade ago. And, besides, he didn't even steal them, he was just holding onto them for someone else."  
  
Alasdair understands his fraternal loyalty – or, perhaps, complicit gullibility – but even so: "What about Martinez's wallet?"  
  
"You heard what the captain said. He found that on the street." Angus' eyebrows knit as if in thought, and then he adds, "Which reminds me, she wanted me to bring you up to her office as soon as you arrived. She said she needs to talk to us both about the Martinez case."

 

 

* * *

  
  
  
Two chairs have been dragged into the captain's small office from parts unknown, but they've already been claimed by the early-bird Corporals Jones and Ellis which leaves Alasdair and Angus with no choice but to awkwardly squeeze themselves into what little space remains as best they can.  
  
Angus stands at parade rest to one side of the captain's desk, his hands clasped together loosely behind his back. The combined breadth of their shoulders ensures that Alasdair can't stand beside him without twisting his body in such a way that it would result in them being so uncomfortably close that they were breathing down one another's necks for the duration, and the wide bookcases prohibit his standing behind, so he perches himself on one corner of the captain's desk itself for lack of any other suitable spots.  
  
He smiles apologetically at the captain, but she ignores him in favour of speaking to Angus. "I'm sorry I had to do this, Corporal Walsh," she says, "but I sent someone to verify your alibi. Mlle. Labelle confirmed that you were with her the entire night, so you can be _officially_ cleared of suspicion of any involvement in your brother's escape."  
  
Alasdair wouldn't have given that information much thought, had he not noticed the faint blush which crept up Angus' neck to blemish his otherwise perfectly stony expression. It leads him to suspect that Angus and the mysterious Mlle. Labelle hadn't spent their time together doing needlework or reading edifying books. Angus had never mentioned to him that he'd started courting, or even had his eye on someone with a mind to it, but, then again, their conversations rarely stray far enough from the safe harbour of small talk that they enter the untamed wilds of personal matters.  
  
It's strange, he thinks, how little you can know about someone even when you speak to them practically every day.  
  
"Now, Jones, Ellis, I want you to search for information concerning Mr Walsh's current whereabouts during your patrol today. You should make sure to visit each of his known associates listed on that report I gave you earlier, Corporal Jones, but recapturing him is not a priority, so I can't spare the manpower for more than that.  
  
"Our priority remains the poisonings, and my... source Belowstreets corroborated Mr Walsh's story. M. Martinez's wallet came into his possession by happenstance, and he never had any contact with the victim, either before or after his demise."  
  
The captain's cheeks also colour slightly, and Alasdair can't help but wonder, and not for the first time, whether her own mysterious lady – the one she only ever hints about obliquely and never names – might be this source that, apparently, only she can ever approach.  
  
It seems ludicrous that Luise Beilschmidt – who was so noble and law-abiding even as a child that she refused to go scrumping with the rest of them come summer, as had been an Ashfield Street tradition since time immemorial – would get herself tangled up with the criminal element, but still, he wonders.  
  
"Unless any fresh evidence comes to light, I think we can discount him as a suspect, especially as he was in our custody when the second attack occurred. Now, speaking of the second victim, Healer Carriedo reports that there's been no significant change in her condition, and we still haven't been able to identify her, so, Kirkland, Walsh," the captain swivels her seat towards Alasdair and Angus, "I've promised you to the Eastgate division for your shifts, so you can help them with their inquiries into the matter."  
  
Alasdair and Angus exchange a pained glance at that news.  
  
The Eastgate division is, by and large, made up of men and women from Old Town, just the same as their own, but as they're patrolling a better class of streets and protecting a better class of people, they're not outfitted with the same dregs from the armour and weapon stores. Their shiny breastplates and swords make them think they're a better class of guards, too, which makes them notoriously difficult to work with.  
  
'Stuck-up arseholes, the lot of them,' as Angus puts it. Even the lowliest recruit seems to think themselves fully the equal in importance as the Old Town captain, and they'll likely end up being ordered about, countermanded, and talked down to all day.  
  
The captain slaps her hands down against the top of her desk decisively, and then pushes herself up to her feet. "Jones and Ellis, you're dismissed," she says. "Kirkland and Walsh, I'd like you to stay for a moment longer."  
  
As soon as Jones and Ellis have left the office, the captain asks Alasdair, "So, have you anything more to report about that dart Gabriella found?"  
  
"I do, sir," Alasdair says, "in a manner of speaking. I'm afraid Dyl's run out of tests he can try, and he's found nothing but the common remedies I told you about the other day."  
  
The captain grimaces. "Unfortunate," she says, "but I suppose we still know more than when we started, regardless. The poison can't be a common one if your brother is unable to identify it, so we should start investigating the type of establishments where such things can be purchased."  
  
Which means the Belowstreets black market, no doubt, and thus something the captain will pursue herself. Nevertheless, he choruses a dutiful, "Yes, sir," along with Angus, as though they're primed and ready to rush off there at her command.  
  
"There's just one more thing I'd like to discuss with you, Corporal Kirkland," the captain says, in the off-hand tone of an afterthought. "I've been informed that you visited the palace again yesterday. Would you care to share why?"  
  
The prince might profess not to have spies, but Alasdair is convinced the captain does. It's near impossible to put so much as a foot outside one's front door without her coming to know about it, seemingly.  
  
"Cait told me there was a rumour going around her legion that the prince was involved in a murder in Germania," he says. "I thought I might be able to get some more information out of him regarding it."  
  
"A murder? This is the first I've ever heard about such a thing." The captain looks nonplussed. "And were you successful?"  
  
"Well, he denies it even happened, but, to be honest, I trust the man about as far as he could throw me. We could do with finding someone who knows what really went on out there, but he said that all the high ups involved were sworn to secrecy by his father. _That_ , I do believe. There's no way a king would countenance risking that his own flesh and blood might end up paying with his own life for taking a commoner's."  
  
Angus' entire face crumples, as though he's fighting some internal battle with his own thoughts. "I might know someone," he says eventually. "Alaina... Mlle. Labelle, that is, used to be the governor's personal tailor when he first went back to Lutetia after leaving the army. She said they were good friends, then. He might have told her something."  
  
The captain glances at her pocket watch. "You've still got three quarters of an hour until your shift starts, Corporal Walsh. You'll be compensated for your time, of course, but do you think you could stop by Mlle. Labelle's shop now and still make it to the Eastgate guardhouse to meet Corporal Kirkland there at eight thirty?"  
  
"Aye, sir."  
  
"Please do so, then. Now, I'm sure it's nothing but gossip and hearsay, but it does raise certain questions that I want answered as soon as we possibly can. I don't want to be adding a prince to our list of potential suspects unless we have no alternative," the captain says. "Oh, and, Corporal? Please extend my sincerest apologies to Mlle. Labelle. I can't imagine it will do her constitution much good to have the guards knocking at her door twice in one day."

 

 

* * *

  
  
  
If there's one thing he can trust when it comes to the prince, it's that the man will not waste an opportunity – no matter how grudgingly given – to insinuate himself into Alasdair's work.  
  
Consequently, when Alasdair vacates the captain's office and takes himself down to the practice yard, it comes as no surprise to find that the prince is dawdling around out there.

What is a surprise, however, is the prince's appearance.  
  
He looks... There's really no better way to describe it but _dreadful_. Even from a distance, Alasdair can see that the man's usual poise has been lost to hunched shoulders and a stiff-legged, uneven gait. When, with a small wave of acknowledgment, he draws closer, his deterioration becomes even more apparent.  
  
His hair hangs lankly around his face in loose curls that are tangled together in some places, and poke out at strange angles in others. His skin is ashen, dusked dark beneath his dull, grey eyes, and his bottom lip looks raw in one corner, as though he's been chewing at it compulsively for some time.  
  
His voice is also much changed; little more than a dry, crackling wheeze as he says, "Corporal."  
  
Oddly, he underscores the greeting with a bow, and as he dips, his coat tails part across his back to reveal a shirt that has come untucked from the waistband of his rumpled trousers.  
  
That sight, more than any other, makes Alasdair feel uneasy.  
  
"Sir," he says, saluting. "I'm feeling a great deal better than yesterday. Nothing more than a lingering bit of stiffness, really."  
  
The prince's chuckle sounds slightly bitter. There's definitely no humour in it. "Very efficiently done, Corporal," he says. "Less than a handful of seconds, and you've left me with very little excuse to remain here."  
  
For once, Alasdair doesn't want to get rid of him for his own sake, but for the prince's. The man looks as though he should find himself somewhere quiet to sleep as soon as he can.  
  
"Sorry, sir," he says, with no real contrition.  
  
"Little, but not none." The prince smiles thinly. "Though this one, you'll be glad to know, won't detain you very long. If you'd like to follow me..."  
  
There's enough command in his tone that it doesn't really sound like a request, so Alasdair feels he has no option to follow the prince as he hobbles back to the entrance of the courtyard, where his barouche is parked.  
  
"You left your claymore behind yesterday," the prince says as he opens the barouche's door. "I presume you do still want it?"  
  
When he returned home the previous night, Alasdair had engaged in a lengthy round of mentally kicking his own arse after he remembered he'd forgotten the gift he'd been given in all the subsequent confusion. He nods vigorously, because it's still the finest sword he's ever held, and he's even more eager to get his hands on it again now that he can be sure that it's not some weird form of Gallian courting gift.  
  
The prince's arms tremble as he lifts the sword out of the barouche, and it sets the long blue tassels attached to its scabbard swaying. Alasdair has to bite back a groan at the sight of it, because whilst the blade itself might be plain, the grip and pommel nothing but serviceable, the scabbard is covered with gilded scrollwork and tiny glittering jewels. It's probably worth more than the apothecary.  
  
"I'm having a new scabbard made for it," the prince says, sounding resigned. "I presumed you wouldn't want to keep the one it comes with. It should be ready within the week, and you can return this one to me then."  
  
"Good thinking, sir," Alasdair says, "because it would be hard to resist selling it and then running off to Hispania with the proceeds otherwise."  
  
The prince huffs out a short breath of laughter. "And here I thought that your objections would be far more honourable. It seems I've badly misjudged you."  
  
With that, he puts one foot up onto the barouche's step, but then hesitates, the line of his back tensing.  
  
"Corporal," he says, clumsily pirouetting around to face Alasdair again. "May I ask you a question?"  
  
Alasdair, too, tenses. "That depends entirely on what it is, sir," he says warily.  
  
"Nothing egregious, I simply wondered if you've lived in Old Town your whole life," says the prince, who clearly believes it better to ask for forgiveness than permission, regardless of the lip service he might pay to the alternative.  
  
Alasdair can see neither harm in answering, nor, honestly, any reason the prince might want to ask beyond simple curiosity. "Aye, as did my ma, and her parents before her, and their parents before them, all the way back to the dawn of time most likely. Da's folks were from Highgate originally, before they came down in the world."  
  
"It must be comforting to have your roots so firmly embedded in one place."  
  
"For some, I suppose," Alasdair allows. He might not be one of them, not exactly, but he has no wish to talk about that with the prince. "Particularly in a place like Ashfield Street, where near everyone else's family has been settled there for generations, too. You tend to grow up with the same people you'll work with later, then eventually your weans will grow up with their weans, and so on. Might as well all be related, I guess."  
  
"So, you're close with all your neighbours?" the prince asks.  
  
"Most of them," Alasdair says with a shrug. "Not many have the money to live anywhere else, but there are a few newcomers every so often, and the odd person or two will move away. Our next-door-neighbour, Mr Horton, sold up his shop just this week, in fact. Retired, and emigrated to Gallia to live with his daughter."  
  
A spasm of some emotion Alasdair can't put a name to briefly contorts the prince's face: his nostrils flaring, brow furrowing, and eyes becoming a little glazed. "When did he move, Corporal?" the prince asks, his voice cracking once more.  
  
Now Alasdair is utterly lost. Why the prince might be interested in the octogenarian Mr Horton's comings and goings is completely beyond him. "The day before yesterday. Sir, I—"  
  
"I should go," the prince says on a sharp exhale. "And no doubt I'm keeping you from your work, as it is."  
  
Alasdair blinks at him, baffled. "Not really, sir." He takes a deep breath himself, and forces all thoughts of the whole strange conversation out of his head since the prince does not seem inclined to explain at present. Nobles often seem to march to the beat of their own, stately drum, and it's probably better not to question it too deeply, in any case. "But you'd be best getting back home to your bed, I think. You look knackered."  
  
He would have expected the prince to bristle at the suggestion that he looks anything less than perfectly put together, but instead he offers what looks like a genuine smile. "I'm touched by your concern." He gives Alasdair another uncharacteristic bow and then scrambles, undignified, into his carriage, whereupon he salutes and says, "Until the next time, Corporal."

 

 

* * *

  
  
  
As Dylan is too tired and Michael too ill to eat – in the latter's case, a sign that he really isn't exaggerating any of his symptoms despite Alasdair's earlier suspicions – Alasdair has a solitary dinner.  
  
Afterwards, faced with a long evening alone with nothing but his increasingly gloomy thoughts for company, he pours himself a finger of his precious smuggled Caledonian whisky, which had been a gift from Lukas Bondevik back in the days when the two of them were still friends.  
  
His entire day has lived down to what the early morning promised. Niall Walsh remains at large despite Jones and Ellis' best efforts, Angus and Alasdair's questions in Eastgate had come to naught, and all Mlle. Labelle had had to say about the prince was that he had been an excellent employer, and never breathed a word to her about what happened during the war.  
  
The whole case has stagnated, it seems, and all Alasdair can think about now is how they're failing not only the Martinez's, but the comatose woman and her family, too. They're probably so worried about her, and he can't even let them know that she's alive and being cared for because he has no idea who they are.  
  
And, above everything else, there's still a murderer out there somewhere. One who's struck twice and likely will again, as—  
  
The knocking makes Alasdair's heart leap into his throat, not because of the late hour, but because it's coming from the front door rather than the back.  
  
As the shop itself is very obviously closed, and everyone liable to call on him or his brothers knows full well that they receive all personal visitors at the back door after opening times are through, he can't imagine who the caller could possibly be.  
  
He contemplates picking up the claymore before investigating, but ultimately rejects the idea. It seems like a slightly overblown reaction given that any would-be intruder who's polite enough to knock first to signal their intentions will likely be intimidated enough to be sent running by his sheer size and a clenched fist.  
  
Besides, he'd feel like an enormous twat if it turned out to just be a parent desperate for some aniseed tincture because one of their bairns had taken sick, after all.  
  
When he does push open the front door, he can't see much of anything for a moment as his eyes adjust to the dim light outside. A slight figure, clad in dark, simple clothes does gradually begin to resolve itself from the shadows, but between the cap pulled down low over its forehead and the scarf pulled up high over its nose, there's not enough of its face visible to give him any clues as to its identity.  
  
Its voice, however, is once again instantly recognisable.  
  
"I know I said I wouldn't visit you at your home, Corporal," the prince says, "but there's something urgent I need to tell you, and there's nowhere else where I would feel safe enough for us to talk freely."

 

 


	23. Chapter 23

The prince walks through the shop and into the kitchen with the meticulous, delicate steps of a cat entering unfamiliar territory. He places his heels down first then slowly rolls his feet towards his toes, and his short, soft-soled boots strike the floorboards with only the faintest sighed breath of a sound.  
  
Once in the kitchen, he studies the room with the same cautiousness, scouring every last inch of it. He even pokes his head into the cook pot, presumably in order to check it isn't concealing a very small child intent on eavesdropping on him.  
  
Alasdair is amused enough by the absurdity of his behaviour to just leave him be, and after an equally thorough investigation of Dylan's laboratory, the prince returns to ask in a muffled whisper, "Are you alone?"  
  
"Technically, no," Alasdair says, just to see the prince's eyes widen in alarm as he expected they would.  "But, don't worry, I haven't got someone stashed in the privy or hiding under the floorboards, before you start ripping them up.  
  
"My brothers are both asleep upstairs, but Dyl snores so loudly he wouldn't be able to hear a pistol shot next to his head, and Mikey's been stuffed so full of cold remedies he likely won't be waking up until the end of the week. There might as well be no-one else here."  
  
The prince nods a little raggedly, and then, without so much as a 'by your leave' plonks himself down at the kitchen table and starts unwinding the scarf from around his mouth. The face revealed as it falls away has a much healthier complexion than when Alasdair had last seen it that morning, which suggests the prince must have followed his advice and taken a nap to recuperate from whatever had been ailing him.  
  
His hair, too, spills forth in its usual gleaming waves once freed from his floppy cloth cap, and he rakes his fingers through it a few times to tease out any snarls before starting to extricate his hands from the tight confines of his leather gloves.  
  
They're black, Alasdair observes, as are the rest of his roughly woven clothes.  
  
"Dark green or grey's better, you know," he says. "For camouflage at night. It's so very rarely completely dark, especially in town, that black can make you stand out more than blend in."  
  
"Duly noted. Thank you, Corporal," the prince says, sounding quite sincere in his gratitude. "I slipped out from right under Maman's nose for countless moonlit assignations as a youth, but I don't suppose such things really prepare one for more serious subterfuges. I actually thought I was doing quite well."  
  
"Well, to be fair, I think doing without the carriage and clattery boots for once is a good enough disguise that most wouldn't even begin to guess it was you under that hat, sir," Alasdair says. "I don't think the rest of it would make much odds either way, after that."  
  
The prince mouths 'clattery boots' to himself with an air of great bafflement, but then he shrugs his shoulders and begins to fastidiously fold his scarf into neat squares of ever-decreasing size.  
  
Even without Dylan to look at him disappointedly, the niggling feeling that he's being a bad host begins to creep up on Alasdair. It's unwelcome, because the prince isn't a guest so much as a person who waltzed into his house with all the certainty of one labouring under the misapprehension that vague, portentous statements on their part were an acceptable substitute for an actual invitation to enter on his.  
  
Still, a decade of Dylan's meaningful glares and quiet clucks of disapproval have insidiously conditioned Alasdair's responses to such an extent that he can't look for long at someone sitting at his table without asking, "Would you like a cup of tea?"

"Please, don't trouble yourself," the prince says. "I'll just have a glass of whatever you're having, if I may."  
  
"It's whisky, sir," Alasdair says, hoping against hope that the man can't stand the stuff.  
  
He wishes he'd had the foresight to hide it away somewhere whilst the prince was exploring the laboratory, because it's disappearing at an alarming enough rate as it is – Alasdair's chief suspect is Michael, though he's vociferous in his protestations of innocence whenever he's accused – and the gods only know if he'll ever get his hands on another bottle. It must have cost Lukas not only a gold coin or two, but also a trip Belowstreets to get the one he does have, and just one of those conditions on its own is a price Alasdair cannot afford.  
  
"Caledonian or Hibernian?" the prince asks, with an interest that Alasdair prays isn't a connoisseur's, even though it sure as hells sounds like it is.  
  
"Caledonian," Alasdair says reluctantly.  
  
"Smuggled, either way. You really are surprising me today, Corporal. I wouldn't have thought you'd want to support that kind of trade."  
  
"It was a gift." Whilst Alasdair hasn't given a great deal of thought or care in many ways about how the prince might perceive him over the course of their acquaintance, his integrity, like his intelligence is something he's anxious to defend. His very effectiveness as a guard might be called into question if it was ever in any doubt.  
  
"And an extremely generous one, too," the prince says. "One you should savour for as long as you can. I don't want to deprive you of any, so I'll take that tea instead if it's still on offer."  
  
Alasdair isn't sure whether it's a subconscious need to either assuage his constant, mild sense of guilt over owning the whisky in the first place, or perhaps to repay, in some small way, the hospitality the prince had shown him at the palace, but he finds himself almost compelled to say, "Naw, I've got enough left to spare you a couple of fingers' worth, at least."  
  
They only have the one glass, and Dylan would be horrified if Alasdair used their last piece of porcelain for anything other than tea, so the prince will have to make do with a mug. Alasdair picks the one with the crackled and faded blue and white glaze because it has the least number of chips around the rim, and then pours a carefully skimpy dash of whisky into it.  
  
Wherever the subconscious need might spring form, it's not sufficiently overwhelming that he can't assuage it whilst also keeping Michael's scrawny twigs of fingers in mind to judge the measure.  
  
The prince curls both hands around the mug when Alasdair passes it to him, and then takes a deep gulp from it as though he's simply swigging water. He screws his eyes shut afterwards, and draws in a harsh breath, lips drawn back from his teeth.  
  
"It's stronger than I was expecting," he says apologetically. "Thank you, regardless, Corporal. This really is very kind of you. I hadn't been expecting any hospitality, given that I disrupted your evening and barged in on you unannounced."  
  
"Aye, well, you did say it was urgent," says Alasdair, who would have offered that invitation to enter if he'd been given a chance to get a word in edgeways. He seats himself opposite the prince and takes a small sip of his own whisky. "But, judging by all the chit chat, I'm assuming whatever it is you want to say to me isn't exactly the life-and-death kind of urgent."  
  
"It is," the prince insists, "though perhaps not at this precise moment. I..." He rolls his mug between his hands to the left and then to the right, swipes his tongue once, twice across his bottom lip, smooths a lock of hair behind his ear and then scowls darkly, presumably ashamed of his own fidgeting. "I'm not sure where to start, Corporal, or how I'm going tell you what you need to know in a way that'll make you believe what I'm saying. I get the impression that you don't particularly trust me."  
  
"Take the 'particularly' out of that sentence and you'd be closer to the truth of it," Alasdair says. "You lie to me all the time, sir."  
  
"I most certainly do not," the prince says, sounding scandalised.  
  
"You started from the second time we met – hells, maybe even the first, for I all I know – so why the hell should I _believe_ that. Come on, if you're as honest with me as you claim, explain to me why the fuck you told me all that shite about not fighting in the war? What possible reason did you have for that?"  
  
It isn't the biggest lie Alasdair has suspected the prince of, or the most important, but somehow it's still the one that galls him the most. Perhaps because it had been predicated on the assumption that he wouldn't have been be able to pick up a periodical and discern it _was_ a lie in the first place.  
  
The prince places his mug on the table, and then interlaces his fingers together tightly. "Because I didn't know if I could trust _you_ back then, Corporal," he says in a hushed tone, staring down at his clasped hands. "I might not have spies, but my father does, and, at first, I thought you might be one of them. He expects me to play the fool, and I do so hate to disappoint him. You would then report back that I was just as much of an idiot as ever, and the less competent he believes me to be, the better it suits my purposes.  
  
"I have to confess that I _did_ lie to you in the conservatory, too. Captain Beilschmidt sends me a report every morning, regular as clockwork, providing a very brief outline of her guards' work the previous day. All I knew for certain was that a man had been found murdered, possibly poisoned, however. I wasn't lying about not knowing any of the details.  
  
"I'm afraid I may have overplayed my shock a tad, but then I can't claim to be an especially talented thespian."  
  
Despite himself, Alasdair chuckles at the memory of the prince's overblown reactions at their first meeting. "Quite the opposite, I'd say, sir. I thought you looked like one of those paintings they put on the front of cheap romance novels; the ones where everybody's bodice ties or shirt laces have come loose, chests are heaving, and they all look about ready to start swooning."  
  
"How fitting," the prince murmurs, chuckling a little himself. "Anyway, I hope you can forgive me the pretence, but I grew suspicious of you almost from the start."  
  
"Why, sir?"  
  
"A simple corporal of the Town Guard who felt he could just walk, unasked, into an Imperial palace and start questioning a prince as though he was a common criminal? It made no sense to me, Corporal. _You_ didn't make sense to me as anything other than one of my father's men. If nothing else, he knows my tastes well enough, and seeing you there, looking like a Roman statue come to life, it was impossible for me to come to any other conclusion, in the end."  
  
Alasdair very much doubts that the prince means that he moves like he's made out of marble, or has a vacuous granite stare. It's the bluntest admission the prince has ever made that he does find him attractive, and he flushes with embarrassed heat, then in the next instant thanks the gods that the prince has yet to find an end to his fascination with his own hands.  
  
"What made you change your mind?" he asks, that same embarrassment making his normally bass voice to soar into something nearer a tenor's range.  
  
Thankfully, the prince doesn't seem to notice his climbing tone, or, at least, he doesn't react to it. "When you berated me in the crypts for assuming you couldn't read. None of the men or women my father employs would do something like that. Father's a stubborn man, and completely unwilling to admit that he might be wrong, so they'd praise me, flatter me, and try to insinuate themselves into my confidence that way, just as they always do.  
  
"But you did entirely the opposite, and somehow achieved what none them ever could. I trust _you_ , Corporal; enough to share some things with you that no-one outside my immediate family knows, and others my father would likely break his promise for, at long last, and have me killed if he ever found them out." The prince glances up at Alasdair, his eyes darkened to navy beneath the shadows of his lowered lashes. "If it helps you trust me, know that I'm putting my life in your hands with this. You could utterly destroy me with it, if you so wished."  
  
It's a weighty thing, a person's life, and Alasdair's shoulders bow slightly, his breath shortens, at the mere prospect of being expected hold it. But beyond curiosity, he feels certain that the prince's secrets must, in some way, relate to the poisonings, given the fascination he appears to have in them, and he's desperate enough now where they are concerned that taking up the burden seems like an acceptable exchange.  
  
"I understand, sir," he says. "I won't speak a word of what you tell me to anyone, if that's what you want."  
  
"It is." The prince sighs out a long, wavering breath, and then says, "I might not often lie to you outright, Corporal, but I am guilty of frequently obfuscating the truth.  
  
"What I told you about the centurion yesterday, for example, is far from being the real story."

 

 


	24. Chapter 24

"That's not the best place to start, though, because it really all began a year or so after I joined my father in Lutetia, and met a young man who..." The prince cuts himself off with a low, frustrated-sounding growl. "No, that's not the best place to start, either. I wish I could have written it all down for you. It would have been so much easier to keep everything straight in my head that way, but I was too worried that such a letter might fall into the wrong hands – if I happened to be waylaid on my way here from the palace, for instance – that I couldn't bring myself to do so."  
  
"And you'd have to trust that I'd destroy it after I read it," Alasdair says.  
  
"I would, Corporal." The prince tips his head back until their eyes meet; his gaze is very direct. "I thought we'd already established that?"  
  
It's flattering, in its way, but Alasdair still doesn't quite understand what he could possibly have done to earn it. "We met less than a week ago, sir. We hardly know each other. And I know you've talked to my brother and Gabs about me, and, I imagine, my captain, but they're hardly going to give the most unbiased accounts of my character, are they? If I was in your position, I don't think I could take that sort of risk."  
  
"Perhaps you could if none of the choices left to you seemed particularly good ones. When you get to that point, sometimes you just have to make a leap of faith."  
  
"I'm not saying you're wrong," Alasdair says hurriedly as he realises he's beginning to argue against his own best interests. "It's just... Well, it's very brave of you, sir."  
  
"I... Thank you, Corporal," the prince says, a light blush dusting the tops of his cheeks. "That's a compliment I've not often been paid."  
  
The prince's smile is different to any he has given Alasdair before. It seems unaffected: a little lopsided and so broad that it teases shallow dimples into his cheeks. Alasdair finds the sight slightly off-putting for no reason he can easily name, and he can't look at it directly for long.  
  
He attempts to disguise his discomfort by retreating to the dresser to pick up his whisky, and when he returns to the table again, the prince appears completely composed once more.  
  
He nods when Alasdair makes a silent offer to pour him another measure, and after glass and mug are replenished, he says, "I've decided the best place to start is, of course, at the very beginning. You've said before that you studied Brittonic history, so I presume you know about the witch hunts that took place following the conquest?"  
  
Every Brittonic child knows about them, including the ones who have never had a day's schooling in their lives. They're not much more than a century divorced from those blood-soaked days, but they've already become the stuff of dark legend; the type of tales that get told in soft, furtive voices when the fire in the grate burns low, or the crowd in a pub's taproom thins out towards midnight.  
  
The island used to be saturated with magic down to its very bones, and even the smallest hamlet would be home to at least one who could channel it and bend it to their will. From the lowliest hedge mage who dispensed charms to lift their neighbours' spirits, to the battle sorcerers who fought alongside knights in service of their king or queen and could, the stories said, melt iron with a word, magic was woven through the very fabric every Briton's life, high to low.  
  
It was how they had managed to hold back the Empire for almost a decade after it had set its hungry sights upon them, though the Imperial army was far better trained and equipped than their own, north or south. But eventually, they fell to the attrition of the long years of war, because the Empire was vast even then, and no matter how many of its soldiers Britannia defeated, they could recruit ten more to replace each who had fallen.  
  
The Emperor's first act after the conquest was to pass an order that called for every remaining hedge mage and battle sorcerer, every druid and witch and enchanter and diviner to be hunted down and killed so they could never again be used as a weapon to wield against the Empire.  
  
Sensing the tide turning against them, some magic users fled north to Caledonia or west over the sea to Hibernia, some were strong enough that they could weave powerful illusions around themselves to hide in plain sight, and yet more were so weak in magic that it couldn't be proven that they were able to work it at all.  
  
The rest were slaughtered. Imperial agents moved from village to village, town to town, putting thousands to the sword, and at the end of it all, magic was a word no Briton dared utter for fear that even that scant knowledge might mark them for suspicion of using it.  
  
"Aye," Alasdair says cautiously, because a little of that ancient fear is buried within him still, "and we thought we'd seen the last of them then, but the rumours are that this Emperor is very keen on starting them back up again. Near everyone you talk to knows someone who knows someone who was dragged from their bed, accused of being a witch. Not sure that I put much stock in it myself, because I've never seen any evidence of it, but still..."  
  
But still, Ma had just gone one day, vanished without a trace somewhere between the apothecary and the baker's shop she walked to every morning, rain or shine. She'd never have left them of her own free will – _never_ – but Alasdair had always been convinced that she'd been taken from them by some more prosaic kind of evil. He'd never found any sign to suggest what might have happened to her (and he'd searched so fucking hard that first year as a guard), but he didn't quite agree with Dylan or Arthur that she might have paid the price for having magic in her.  
  
She didn't know any more than a few, weak cantrips, none of their neighbours would have betrayed her for using them, and, besides, the previous Emperor had been on the throne then, and he didn't have his father and grandfather's fanatical hatred of magic. Britons had started to forget they should be afraid.  
  
"It's not the Emperor you should be concerned about," the prince says, sounding grim. "It might seem that way, given how often his speeches are filled with denunciations of magic, but really they're my father's words spoken in his voice. _He's_ the zealot, Corporal. _He's_ the one who's been stirring up the talk of cleansing the Empire of magic entirely in recent years.  
  
"You wouldn't know, I'm sure, but although my uncle might be without equal on the battlefield, he's... easily led outside it, and my father has a very forceful personality. He can be extremely persuasive, in his way.  
  
"Left to his own devices, I'm sure the Emperor would have continued to rule just as his father did, but my father dripped poison into his ear from the start. Even before that, when my father became a king himself, he used his new influence to begin experimenting on a small scale with the strategy he has since ensured will be spread to the Empire entire; a disappearance here, a disappearance there.  
  
"He wanted to avoid wide-spread panic, and, more than that, he didn't want any magic user to know just how thoroughly they'd have to conceal themselves to escape him, so it's all been so quiet, so circumspect, that I'm sure no-one but a handful of the victims' families and friends has ever suspected that there was anything sinister afoot."  
  
Alasdair's guts feel as though they're twisting themselves into a tight, cold knot. The prince's father ascended his throne twelve years ago. "Was that just in Gallia at the start, or...?"  
  
He can't bring himself to finish the sentence, can't even move his lips or tongue to form the words, and the prince's eyes soften with so much concern that Alasdair's certain that he _knows_ , or at least must have guessed at something close to the truth.  
  
"No, across the whole Empire. Britannia included," the prince says. "Corporal, I'm so sorry. Did your mother—"  
  
Alasdair holds up a hand, palm out, and thankfully the prince recognises the request he can't voice in the gesture and falls silent.  
  
The prince might be willing to put his life in Alasdair's hands, but the converse is definitely not true, and he doesn't want to lose that little bit of plausible deniability that he can still cling to by confirming nothing. They'd all been so careful after Ma disappeared, just in case, to make sure that no suspicion could ever come to fall of one of them in its turn.  
  
"What... What do they do to the ones that... disappear," he forces himself to ask, because that's been the hardest part of it, all these years. Being left behind to try and scrape together some semblance of a life in the aftermath had been _nothing_ compared to not knowing whether she was dead, or something worse.  
  
"I don't know where my father has them taken, or what he has done to them." The prince grabs up his whisky, and drinks another mouthful of it. Cringes again, because he clearly didn't learn well enough the last time. "I wish I could tell you more, but until a couple of months ago, I didn't have so much of an inkling of _how_ he was taking them.  
  
"And I only found out it was happening at all four years ago. Which brings me back to Lutetia and my young man; in his rightful place now, I think."  
  
"Were you courting, sir?"  
  
Alasdair wouldn't normally care to ask, but there are tears prickling at the corners of his eyes and the question serves as a distraction from thinking about Ma. He's never let himself cry over her; not here, anyway. Never in the kitchen where one of his brothers might have seen him, and been even more scared and sad and disheartened because he was the only one they had left to look after them and they had to believe he was strong enough to do so.  
  
It's an old impulse, no longer needed, but so deeply ingrained that he can't help but submit to it.  
  
"After a fashion, I suppose, in the Gallian way," the prince says. "My father would never have allowed me to marry him, but I think I might have liked to some day, if it had been possible. He was the son of a Roman lord, though, so Father approved of him more than any other lover I ever took.

"We were together for almost a year, and grew so close that he trusted me enough to confess that he could use magic. It was _almost_ _nothing_ , Corporal – he could float a feather an inch or two above the ground, at most – and still, when my father learnt of it, as he inevitably does, he had him dragged away. Despite his noble name, despite of my attachment to him, he disappeared like all the others.  
  
"And because I knew of his magic and never told my father, he had me... punished."  
  
"With the army?" Alasdair asks, trying to fit together the little snippets of information the prince has already given him to form a coherent chronology of his life before Deva.  
  
"In time," the prince says. "When I still remained defiant after all of the other admonishments he tried."  
  
He picks through the words so distastefully, seeming sickened to have to let them touch his tongue, that Alasdair feels it would be cruel to press him to speak any more on the matter.  
  
"And did the centurion have magic, too?" he asks. Considering everything they've talked of thus far, it appears to be the most obvious conclusion.  
  
The prince nods. "Although he wasn't the one to tell me of it. My uncle had become Emperor by then and, given the tenor of his proclamations at the time,  I could never hope that someone might trust me with that sort of knowledge again.  
  
"I found out because, quite by chance, I was handed a report that was meant to go to my father instead. His... agents had been at work, moving through the camps, and they had identified several magic users amongst the soldiers. In that particular report, they named my centurion."  
  
"So you helped him escape before they could catch him?"  
  
"I did."  
  
"Then you got punished for that by being made governor?"  
  
"I... In time, yes."  
  
Whilst Alasdair can understand why the prince might want to keep his actions from becoming public knowledge, they don't sound as though they'd still pose him any danger: his father knew of them, and he'd enacted whatever punishments a mind as twisted as his sounds to be would see fit.  
  
It has to be connected with something that's happened far more recently.  
  
"There's more to this, isn't there," he says. "And I'm guessing the poisonings are involved somehow."  
  
"And I don't believe that's a guess at all, Corporal. I think you're too talented a guard for that."  
  
The prince smiles wanly, and then reaches into the pocket of his loose black trousers. "I told you yesterday that the Legates and Tribunes who knew about my part in the centurion's desertion wouldn't have spoken of it, but one of them must have, because a couple of months ago, I started receiving letters like _this_."  
  
He withdraws a single sheet of paper, unfolds it, and then slides it across the table towards Alasdair.  
  
There are only three lines written upon it, in a blocky, even hand. They read:  
  
      _Mr Robert Horton_  
      _Ashfield Street_  
      _Old Town_

 

 


	25. Chapter 25

Alasdair runs his fingertips across the piece of paper, and then holds it up to the oil lamp sitting at the end of the table. It's rough, poor quality, and has no watermark; the cheap kind that's sold at the post office for a copper a ream, and plenty of other places besides.  
  
The short note, too, is nondescript. Each letter is almost as regularly formed as if it had been printed, and lacks any of the quirks or flourishes that might perhaps be used to match it to a particular hand, or give some insight into the mind of a writer.  
  
They didn't even have the decency to end it with their signature.  
  
"I don't recognise the handwriting, before you ask," the prince says. "I've received six other notes very similar to this one, containing nothing more than a name and address. All of them concealed within the hollow of a tree which stands at the end of a track I like to ride along most days.  
  
"All of them, save the first, which was somehow slipped into my coat pocket during a ball I attended at Lord Elliot's house in Highgate.  
  
"That first letter's contents were very different, too. It started out by saying that my deeds in Germania had come to the attention of the author via a source they did not name, and that they thought that I could, therefore, be considered a _friend_ of a _certain type of person_.  
  
"My heart stood still when I read that, as I'm sure you can imagine, but as I read on, expecting threats of exposure or blackmail, I discovered something far more dangerous."  
  
The prince's voice grows a little croaky with the last few words, and he reaches for his mug again. Judging by his forlorn expression as he peers down into it, however, it's gone just as dry as his throat sounds.  
  
Alasdair contemplates his precious bottle equally forlornly. There's no more than three fingers of whisky remaining in it now, which, considering the rate of the sneak thief's consumption, and his own, likely wouldn't see out the rest of the week even if he did decide not to share.  
  
"Take the rest of this," he says, quickly pushing the bottle at the prince before his better judgement can catch up with his arm. "But you're going to buy me another to replace it, you ken?"  
  
"I'll buy you an entire case," the prince promises solemnly.  
  
He raises the bottle itself to his mouth and drains it in one long swallow. Alasdair could almost weep at the sight, and he wonders if the prince had felt the same way when he watched him failing to appreciate all those glasses of expensive wine he was given at the palace.  
  
Once every drop of whisky has been drained, the prince roughly swipes his lips on the sleeve of his jacket, and then continues with: "The author went on to identify themselves as an agent of my father, but not one of his spies or assassins.  
  
"Instead, they claimed that they performed a task for him that I hadn't even known was possible before. There are those, it seems, who have no magic themselves but can sense it being used in their vicinity, and my father has set them to roaming the streets of every town and city in the Empire.  
  
"There are three of these 'Seekers' here in Deva, the author told me, and they are one of them."  
  
"They... listen out for magic being used, and then what?" Alasdair asks. "Report it to someone? Not you, I'm thinking."  
  
"No, my father would never have thought to trust me with that sort of information," the prince says. "The Seekers' reports are all sent on to another of my father's agents in Eboracum, I believe, and she decides how they will be acted upon.  Who should be made to disappear, and how, and when.  
  
"The Seeker who contacted me wrote that they had grown disillusioned with my father's 'vision', and they wished for a way to redress some of the harm they had already done in his name.  
  
"They told me that they would, if I were willing, send some of the names they discovered in the course of their work directly to me and not their contact in Eboracum. Just one or two, here and there, because it would arouse to much suspicion if they suddenly stopped sending reports altogether. Then, they said, I could arrange to help these people escape before one of their other colleagues detected them."  
  
"Couldn't you just tell them that they were in danger and should stop using magic entirely, just to be safe?"  
  
The prince shrugs. "Apparently, it wouldn't be safe for them at all. The 'scent' of magic can linger around those who aren't well-versed in its use after a single spell even if they never cast another in their lives again. In the days before the conquest, users were taught how to prevent such things, but that knowledge has since been lost."  
  
Not quite lost to everyone, Alasdair thanks the gods, otherwise he'd be terrified by the existence of these Seekers as well as disgusted. "So, I presume you told this Seeker that you'd help them, then?"  
  
"If I could have, I would've given them the most emphatic 'yes' I was capable of voicing. I _hate_ what my father's doing, Corporal. My lover's magic posed no threat to anyone, neither did the centurion's, and I'm certain that the same holds true for the vast majority of people he's ordered must be ripped away from their lives. If I could save just one of them from that fate, I would do anything in my power to do so, even if it meant risking my own life in the process.  
  
"But I had no way of contacting the Seeker; I just had to wait. They said that I should start checking the hollow of that tree I mentioned five days after I received the first letter, and in that time, I should make any arrangements I deemed necessary if I did intend to take part in their scheme.  
  
"I contacted another friend I knew I could trust implicitly, and who would be able to procure false papers and safe passage from Deva to Caledonia. He agreed to aid me in any way he could, and all there was to do then was wait."  
  
"And your Seeker started leaving you notes like this one," Alasdair says, smoothing his hands over the letter again. "Giving you the name and address of a magic user, and you'd..." His mind jumps to another letter, or at least the scrap of one. A single name, not a person's but a street's. "Send them warning, and directions to a place where your friend would meet them with those papers."  
  
The prince gives him a familiar look, but, for once, Alasdair doesn't find it irritating, For once, he thinks the man might just be impressed, full stop, with no provisos. "As I did successfully with four people before M. Martinez, and the young woman who was attacked the other day. Her name is Helen Spenser, by the way; wife of Dr Alice Spenser, and daughter of Mr and Mrs Pearson, all of Brown Street, Eastgate.  
  
"If you were wondering why none of them has come forward to report her missing, it's likely the same reason why neither Clemence nor Henri approached the guards.  
  
"In my letters, I suggest that they should inform their families of the arrangements, if they trusted them enough keep the details to themselves, so their disappearance would be an expected one. Then they could meet up again in Caledonia some day, if that were possible, but if not, they'd still _know_. I've always thought it's the worst of all of this wretchedness, the not knowing."  
  
Alasdair still can't quite find the courage to say, 'It is,' but, then again, he doesn't really think he needs to. After what happened to the prince's lover, he must understand it well enough himself already.  
  
"You see now why I had to come and tell you all this? I'm afraid I don't know why Armand or Helen were poisoned, or who by, but I knew you'd probably never be able to uncover those things yourself whilst you were missing so many essential pieces of the puzzle.  
  
"Mrs Spenser, particularly, has weighed heavily on my mind these past few days. Her family must think her safely delivered to her new life by now, and yet she's here in Old Town, and perhaps near death. I wanted to tell you her name, but I couldn't think of any plausible reason I might know it; nothing that wouldn't bring even more suspicion my way. I'm sure you thought me a suspect in the attacks, Corporal. Perhaps you still do."  
  
"I'd be pretty stupid if I didn't, sir," Alasdair says. "Sounds as though there aren't many beyond you and your friend who knew that Spenser and Martinez would be in those alleyways when they were. Are you really certain that your friend's trustworthy?"  
  
"Quite certain, Corporal," the price says, with the sort of abrupt finality that suggests that the entire subject of his friend is closed for the time being. "I suppose he might have been followed, or one of the notes intercepted, though I think that's unlikely, given the method by which we exchange them."  
  
This, too, he seems unwilling to elaborate on at present, and after a few minutes of weighty silence, Alasdair remarks, "At least we don't have to worry about Mr Horton," in an attempt to lighten the mood a little. "By all reports, he safely boarded his ship to Gallia, so those Seekers didn't get their hands on him."  
  
The prince grimaces. "I was never worried about Mr Horton," he says. "Corporal, the Seeker said in his first letter that it's sometimes difficult for them to pinpoint exactly where the magic they can sense is emanating from, especially in somewhere like Old Town, with the houses so closely crowded together.  
  
"My father would never more than one person being taken from any particular street at the same time, because whilst one disappearance will be rationalised away somehow, two or more close together will likely make people start to become paranoid. So sometimes, the Seekers simply toss a coin and pick between one house and the next, between one person and... and their neighbour.  
  
"If the Seeker leaves me a name, Corporal, then it's one that they've discovered during that particular night's search, and I ride out before breakfast every day to check for them. I received this note this morning, and when you told me that your Mr Horton had moved out a short while ago... Well, it was yet another reason I decided I had to talk to you with some urgency."  
  
Alasdair's guts begin to ravel themselves painfully again.  
  
It wouldn't have been Michael, because they made a point never to teach him so he wouldn't have to make the choice the rest of them did, and Dylan is too...  
  
The only thing Dylan is, is far too fucking eager to almost kill himself for someone else's sake. Whether it's working for too long on too little sleep just in the hope he might be able to help Alasdair's sake, or performing his 'one last test' in the hope that he might be able to help Gabriella and the comatose Mrs Spenser.  
  
'One last test', no doubt, using Ma's old supplies in the cellar where she used to work her magic. The cellar which runs beneath Mr Horton's old shop as well as the apothecary. The Seeker might not have had to toss their coin at all.  
  
"Corporal," the prince leans forward, and holds one hand over Alasdair's, not quite touching, but close enough that Alasdair can feel the heat of his skin seeping down through his own, "if you need—"  
  
"Horton's name never got sent on to Eboracum, did it?" Alasdair asks him brusquely. "Or to your friend?"  
  
"No, only the Seeker and I know it at present, but—"  
  
"Then I don't need anything," Alasdair says, relaxing again, because Dylan was taught properly, by someone who had been trained in all the old ways even though they never had as much magic as their parents before them, or any of their children after.  
  
There wouldn't be anything _lingering_ around him, not a speck.  
  
"I can tear the letter up, if you like," the prince says, "then you can be certain it no-one else will _ever_ see it."  
  
Alasdair shakes his head, the vague stirrings of an idea starting to form. "Don't, sir," he says. "Maybe none of these notes flying around the place have ever been intercepted, but you could be wrong. We could perhaps use it, see if we can flush anyone out?"  
  
"Perhaps," the prince says, slumping back down in his seat, his hand drifting away from Alasdair's to rest, palm up, on the table top. "But – please forgive me again, Corporal – could we discuss it tomorrow? I don't really feel equal to making any plans tonight. My head's far too fuzzy."  
  
Alasdair doesn't have a great deal of sympathy to spare him. "Putting away as much whisky as you did does tend to have that effect," he says snippily.  
  
The prince has the good grace to look contrite, but no apology is forthcoming, all the same. "It was fuzzy before that. I could barely sleep last night for worrying about Mrs Spenser, amongst other things, nor this afternoon either, despite your sound advice, for worrying about that note and what it might mean. To be honest, I'm surprised I managed to get my story out with any sort of coherency. I am being coherent, aren't I, Corporal?"  
  
"Aye," Alasdair says, but not with any great conviction, because it's already getting quite hard to call.  
  
The prince's voice has suddenly begun to slur, the words blending and blurring together, as though he'd only managed to carry on their conversation through sheer force of will, and now that it's coming to its end, the exhaustion and the alcohol he'd been holding back with it throughout is hitting him all at once.  
  
"I should go, before..."  
  
The prince's face goes completely slack, and the sentence left hanging unfinished. He slithers even further down in his chair, his head banging against the back of the chair with a dull thud which he shows absolutely no signs of having felt.  
  
"For fuck's sake," Alasdair groans, panic rising in his chest with the realisation that: "You can't go anywhere, can you? You'll end up dead in a ditch somewhere if you try walking back to the palace in this state, then we'll probably never be able to catch the poisoner."  
  
"Nonsense," the prince says, very firmly even though he can't seem to recall the correct sequence of movements that will enable to him to stand, and he hovers, crouched and uncertain, over the seat of his chair momentarily, before the attempt is finally aborted. "You could be right," he concedes.  
  
"Of course I am," Alasdair says, and it's a struggle to choke out the rest of the sentence, even though he knows it's only fair, given what the prince had offered to him when he really was in no fit state to walk himself, "you'll have to stay here tonight."

 

  
  
The prince stares at him, open-mouthed and wide-eyed for a while. "But what about your neighbours?" he says eventually. "What if they see me come morning? You seemed so worried about rumours before."  
  
"I'm sure I can find a way of smuggling you out without anyone seeing, sir. And if I can't, then surely it's better that people think we're" – the next word sticks even harder in his throat, and he has to practically hack up a lung to dislodge it – " _fucking_ than what we've actually been doing. You know, if anyone did happen to notice you sidling in here earlier."  
  
"If you can bear that, I certainly can." The prince subjects him to a slightly unfocused and wobbly once over, and then breaks out another lopsided smile. "Please, lead me to your bed, Corporal."


	26. Chapter 26

The prince moves like a marionette whose strings have become tangled: jerky, uncoordinated, and teetering on the verge of overbalancing with each precarious step.  
  
Alasdair follows one watchful pace behind him as they cross the kitchen, and then, at the base of the stairs, he holds his arms outstretched so that they will span the full breadth of the stairwell when they ascend to his bedroom.  
  
The prince comes to a halt, perhaps sensing the movement or else catching sight of it out of the corner of his eye, and then tilts his head to shoot Alasdair a quizzical look over his shoulder. "What _are_ you doing, Corporal?" he asks.  
  
"Getting ready to catch you if you happen to lose your footing," Alasdair says. "Wouldn't want you to take a tumble and break your neck."  
  
The prince's mouth puckers as he digests this information, as though he's discovering in the process that it's as sour as a salted lemon and he doesn't much care for the taste. "Because I'm an essential witness, and your investigation would be lost without me?" he says, with some of that same acidity in his tone.  
  
His motives are more obvious to Alasdair now than they've been at any other point in their association so far, but then there is truth in wine, as the Romans are fond of saying, and the truism holds equally strong for whisky. Even so, whether they're attempted by the prince himself or the trappings of his office, Alasdair has just as little patience for clumsy manipulations meant to fish for reassurance as he does those meant to humble him.  
  
He restricts himself, therefore, to a bland, "Aye."  
  
"And not because I'm your governor?"  
  
"The Emperor would appoint us another before your body was cold on the ground, no doubt. We wouldn't be without for long."  
  
"Or your prince?"  
  
"You're not _my_ prince, sir. As you so rightly pointed out before, we Britons aren't allowed to claim royalty of our own in case it ends up going to our heads and we find ourselves helpless to resist the compulsion to rebel against the Empire."  
  
"I have often admired your habit of speaking your mind, but although your candour might be refreshing, it's not very _encouraging_."  
  
The prince pouts slightly, and it's such a ridiculous expression to see on a grown man's face that Alasdair can't help but chuckle a little. "The untimely loss of any human life is, of course, a great tragedy, sir."  
  
"You're nowhere near as funny as you seem to think you are, Corporal," the prince says coldly, despite the faint stirrings of a smile Alasdair can see beginning to curl his lips. "Come on, then. Shall we attempt this perilous climb?"  
  
Alasdair had assumed that the prince would stumble at least once, just to test either his reflexes or his commitment to ensuring that noble brains remained safely inside their skulls, but his progress is steady, albeit excruciatingly slow.  
  
"It's the door on your left," Alasdair tells him when he pauses again at the top of the stairs. "You'll have to give it a good, hard shove, because it always sticks a bit when the air's as damp as it has been of late."  
  
The prince duly attacks the door, but with a mite more enthusiasm than is really required, and it swings open with such sudden violence that he's sent flying into the room along with it.  
  
Alasdair thus expects to find him lying in a mortally offended heap on the floor when he too enters the bedroom, but instead he's leaning against the wall near Alasdair's wardrobe, both hands braced hard against it as though it's the only thing in the world that gives him any hope of staying upright.  
  
"Right," Alasdair says brusquely. "Let me just get a few things sorted out, then we can see about settling you in for the night."  
  
He lights the oil lamp on his bedside table, draws the tattered curtains over the room's one small window, and then reflects glumly that he should have thought to change his bed sheets or at the very least remembered that they were in a rumpled state of disarray because he hadn't been arsed to straighten them out that morning. By the time he's completed these meagre preparations, the prince has stirred himself sufficiently to forgo the wall's support and become absorbed in studying the painting which hangs above the bed.  
  
Its frame had once borne a portrait of one of Da's ancestors, but as Dylan had been of the opinion since childhood that Great-Great-Grandfather Tristan had been painted with the fearsome look of a man who might take it into his oil-paint-head to clamber off the canvas some day in order to haunt his disappointing descendants, it had been ceded to the housing of one of the masterpieces Michael had produced when he was six or so, leaving Tristan to moulder into obscurity in the attic.  
  
Said masterpiece consists of a seemingly unconnected series of brown and green blobs that defy any attempts at interpretation, even on the part of the original artist.  
  
"Interesting," is the prince's only comment, as he's clearly just as stumped for anything pertinent to say as anyone else who's ever viewed it.  
  
"It's one of my little brother's," Alasdair tells him. "From his finger-painting period."  
  
The title of the piece is written across the top of the paper in Dylan's most elegant copperplate, and the prince recites it in a questioning tone, "'The Ambiguity of Nature and Form'?"  
  
"Because even Mikey couldn't tell us it whether it was supposed to be a horse or a dog," Alasdair says, only becoming aware of how foolish it all sounds as he's saying the words, which is far too late to be of any comfort.  
  
Back then, he and Dylan had given pretentious titles to all of Micheal's offerings and proudly framed them, because it they had thought it kinder than admitting they couldn't think of anything particularly nice to say about them, not in the way Ma had always been able to. It seems silly and childish now, and maybe he should have realised long ago that the painting was better hidden away and not kept out on display.  
  
Thankfully, the prince's interest in Micheal's artwork wanes thereafter, but Alasdair's relief is short-lived, because it's soon redirected towards the old table which serves him as a desk.  
  
He shuffles over to it, and then bends close to peer at the books lined up along its back edge. He touches each cracked spine as he reads the title printed there, and then lifts his fingers away with a dismissive flick before they settle on the next one along.  
  
"I've read all of these," he says, and though it doesn't exactly sound like an accusation, Alasdair feels as though it is one, all the same.  
  
He doesn't have as much time to read as he used to, never mind as much as he would like, and so his reading list is composed only of those volumes that have come into his possession second-hand from Gabriella, Luise, or one of his brothers. He can't justify the expense of buying any for himself when he's already several years behind the publishers' schedules.  
  
His selection must seem laughably outdated to the prince, who likely gets his hands on a copy of every new book of note whilst it's still warm from the printer's press.  
  
Before he can even try to explain himself, the prince has moved on, his attention caught by the little rocks and pebbles Alasdair had brought home as a souvenir of his trip to the lake with Da and Caitlin. He picks each one up with exquisite care, but Alasdair still feels uncomfortable, as though that gentle touch is in actuality cracking him open so the prince can poke and sift through his insides and everything else that's usually obscured from view.  
  
He's never received a guest into his bedroom nor suspected he ever would, so he hasn't had cause before to conclude that there might be far too much of himself left out in plain view. Now he has, he can't keep himself from wondering if the prince finds it all incredibly petty and small.  
  
Still, he can hardly demand that the prince stops looking, because the man hadn't asked the same of Alasdair before giving his own bedroom over to his use.  
  
He does, however, feel fully justified in attempting to distract the prince with the same aim in mind.  
  
"You're either going to have to sleep in your clothes or make do with one of my nightshirts," he says. "It'll be too big, no doubt, but we don't exactly have an abundance of nightwear, and certainly none that'll fit you any better."  
  
The prince spins round to give Alasdair a strange smile that is likely intended to be suggestive, but having lost something in drunken translation, it's merely gormless-looking. "I usually sleep naked, Corporal."  
  
"Not in my bed, you don't," Alasdair says, folding his arms primly over his chest.  
  
"Fine," the prince huffs out, sounding a little peevish. "I'll take the nightshirt."  
  
"There's a chamber pot under the bed," Alasdair says, moving towards his chest of drawers, "which I'd recommend you use if you have need of it. After all the care we took to get you up here in one piece, it'd be a shame if you cracked your head open trying to get down to the privy."  
  
The prince makes no answer, but his sensibilities might be too delicate to admit that he could ever have need of either. Alasdair ignores the silence and roots through his few nightshirts until he finds the sole specimen that is – notwithstanding its sickening mustard yellow colour – decent enough for the prince to wear due to its relative lack of holes and threadbare patches.  
  
He folds it over his arm, and turns with the intention of handing it over to the prince, only to find that he's moved on from the desk and is running his hands over the bed's headboard in lieu of Alasdair's rock collection.  
  
"I was just thinking that this bed could probably tell many tales," the prince says, with that same gormless smile fixed firmly in place.  
  
Transparent as glass again, and Alasdair has no more desire to take part in this particular angling expedition than he did the last.  
  
"Given that five children were conceived in it, including me, then, aye, likely so."  
  
To the prince's credit, his expression barely alters, but he does drop his hands back down to his sides with amazing speed.  
  
"Don't worry, though, the mattress has been changed since then," Alasdair says, taking pity on the man. He drops the nightshirt onto the bed and then heads out towards the hallway after the parting shot of, "Sweet dreams, sir."  
  
If the prince makes any reply, Alasdair doesn't hear it before he closes the door behind him.  
  
He slips into Dylan's room, and, true to form, his brother is snoring like a dragon with sinus issues and doesn't stir whilst Alasdair strips down to his drawers and vest – even though he kicks his boots off so hard that they ricochet off the wall at the other end of the room – nor when he yanks one of the pillows out from beneath his head to place at the foot of the bed.  
  
He does make a mildly interrogative noise when Alasdair lies down beside him, but Alasdair's explanation of, "The prince is going to be sleeping in my room," seems to satisfy him perfectly well.  
  
He curls one arm around Alasdair's ankles as he usually does when they're sharing a bed, and then falls straight back into deep sleep again. His hair tickles, and he has a tendency to dribble, but Alasdair forebears the discomfort in pre-emptive apology, because he has his own tendency to physically fight against being pulled into dreams and will probably kick poor Dylan in the face several times.  
  
Unlike his brother, Alasdair is slow to relax. His mind persists on wandering back to his own bedroom, to the prince and whatever fresh judgements he will be forming about Alasdair's character, now he's been freed to paw through his possessions as he pleases.  
  
No matter how hard he listens, though, he can hear no signs of movement, only the normal creaks and groans of the old building as it settles against its frame for the night.

 

 

* * *

 

  
  
Alasdair is rudely awoken by a prolonged and very insistent shaking of his shoulders, and he opens his eyes to find Dylan staring down at him, looking like he's just peeped out of the window and discovered that what he had mistaken for dawn's rosy glow had actually been caused by a town-wide conflagration instead of the sunrise.  
  
"What are you doing here," he demands rather than asks.  
  
"I told you last night," Alasdair says, stretching slowly to work out the kink that sleeping always presses into his back. "I gave the prince my bed. He was pissed, and I didn't think he'd manage to get back to the palace without doing himself an injury."  
  
"The prince. In your bed." Dylan's thumb, predictably, shoots towards his mouth, and he begins nibbling on its nail. "What are you planning on doing with him now?"  
  
It's said in the exact same tone as Ma used to use when she asked the same question of Dylan every time he came home with a baby bird that had fallen from its nest or a mangy stray cat in tow.  
  
Dylan's would invariably say then that he wanted to nurse it back to health, but Ma's advice to that suggestion was also invariably sound, and Alasdair intends to follow it now.  
  
"I'll give him a bit of something to eat, then get him back to where he belongs."  
  
Whilst Dylan flaps around, twittering about how he has to make himself look presentable if they're going to be breakfasting with royalty, Alasdair gives himself a quick scrub at Dylan's basin, washes the sleep out of his mouth, and then dresses in the crumpled clothes he'd left where they fell before bed.  
  
Shaving, brushing his teeth, and his daily fight with his hair will just have to wait until he's successfully ousted the prince from his room.  
  
To that end, his next move is to go and knock on his bedroom door.  
  
It is answered first by a string of muffled Gallian curses, then the sounds of someone locked in a desperate struggle with their bedclothes, and then finally the prince himself, who yanks it open and glares out at Alasdair sullenly.  
  
His hair has twisted itself into curls again, and those curls have twisted around each other, making it difficult to tell where one ends and another begins. For the first time since Alasdair has known him, his face is shadowed with stubble, and it rasps beneath his palm as he drags his hand down over his eyes to rub distractedly at his chin.  
  
"What do you want?" he snaps afterwards.  
  
"Maybe a little gratitude for potentially saving your life last night?" Alasdair snaps back, but the prince fails to look even remotely chastened which makes Alasdair feel as though he will be fighting a losing battle from the start if he persists in the same vein. So he takes a deep breath, sighs out his irritation, and then asks, "Would you like some breakfast?"  
  
The prince's brow furrows, and he ponders the simple enquiry for a span of time better suited to one cogitating on the secrets of the universe. "I could eat," is his eventual assessment.  
  
Alasdair had supposed he'd want to preen for a good long while before even considering setting a foot outside the bedroom, but instead he potters after Alasdair when he heads downstairs, alternately yawning and grumbling indistinctly under his breath – impugning Alasdair's good name, no doubt – all the way to the kitchen.  
  
Once there, he deposits himself in same chair that he had used the previous night, and then sets about subjecting the table to his bad mood, tapping his fingers against it in a brisk, imperious rhythm.  
  
The noise might be intended to hurry him along, but Alasdair finds it has entirely the opposite effect, making his feet drag so badly that the water for tea still hasn't finished boiling by the time Dylan creeps diffidently into the kitchen.  
  
Even though the prince is clad in an ugly borrowed nightshirt that's so baggy on him that it keeps slipping down his shoulder to reveal shadowed glimpses of one collarbone before he sets it to rights again, Dylan gapes at him with the same sort of reverence he had when they last met.  
  
"Good morning, Your Highness," he says with another of his overly elaborate bows.  
  
"Good morning, Mr Kirkland," the prince returns with such stiff formality that it almost borders on an insult.  
  
"Oh, please don't feel as though you have to keep on calling me that," Dylan says, seemingly oblivious to any slight, intentional or otherwise. "Dylan's fine. I mean, technically, I shouldn't even _be_ a Mister, seeing as though I've never been married. But Master Kirkland's always sounded a little odd to me, because –"  
  
The steadily escalating pitch of Dylan's voice indicates that his nerves have started to fray, and so Alasdair grabs hold of his shoulders in the hope of grounding him before he can soar away into the endless bank of words that is the only other thing that seems to calm him in these circumstances. "Do we still have some of yesterday's bread left over?" he asks.  
  
Unless he's truly angry, Dylan would never dream of interrupting another person no matter how badly he might wish to talk, so he clamps his mouth shut accordingly. After a moment's thought, he nods.  
  
"And some of the butter Claire gave us? And the jam Art made?"  
  
Another nod.  
  
"Then we can have toast," Alasdair says. When he glances towards the prince to ask, "Do you fancy toast, sir?" he's already sporting a faint smile which seems to render the question moot.  
  
"Toast would be fine, Corporal," he confirms regardless. "Thank you."  
  
Dylan bustles off to collect the required ingredients, and with his mind mostly occupied by practical matters he is able to ask quite casually, "So, how _are_ you planning to get back to the palace?"

 

  
  
Even though he probably should have, Alasdair hasn't given it a great deal of thought. The prince, on the other hand, pipes up immediately with the assurance of someone who has already come to a unilateral decision for the both of them.  
  
"I don't plan on going to the palace," he says. "Well, not until after I've begged a favour from the Guard Captain, anyway."


	27. Chapter 27

The prince spends a suspiciously long while holed up in Alasdair's bedroom after he's picked his way through a single slice of toast and jam, but when he returns to the kitchen, it's clear that his time has been spent perfecting his disguise, though it's a completely different one to that which he been wearing the previous evening.  
  
He has scraped his hair into a queue once more, tied up with a strip of black fabric that he's torn from either his scarf or hat and carefully folded so that it looks like a length of ribbon on a cursory inspection. His shirt must have been worn under his jacket when he arrived, because it's definitely not one of Alasdair's. It's simply but closely cut, and a pure brilliant white that can likely only be maintained under the aegis of a staff of dedicated servants.  
  
His trousers have been cleverly cinched so their roominess is not so readily apparent, and his boots are pulled up out of their slouch: to the sort of casual observer who would also be fooled by the 'ribbon', they would easily pass as riding boots.  
  
All together, he looks only marginally less smart than he usually does; perhaps dressed to partake in a morning's stroll around some factory or other in order to feign politically polite interest in the workers rather than indulging his recent habit of chasing Alasdair around Old Town in one of his carriages.  
  
"I think you should wear the outfit you wore when you last visited me at the palace," he says to Alasdair as he prepares he heads upstairs to perform his own ablutions.  
  
"Why?" Alasdair asks. "It's no good for work, so I'll just have to come back home to get changed again before my shift starts, anyway."  
  
"Because it suits you, Corporal," the prince says, "and that suits my purposes. Please, trust me for a moment. I'll explain everything whilst we walk."  
  
As it turns out, he doesn't have chance to say anything at all.  
  
They have to stay as close to silent as they can possibly manage whilst they sneak out through the apothecary's back yard and along the alleyway which runs parallel to Ashfield Street, and when they eventually do emerge into the liberating hustle and bustle of Burton Road, it's with the very worst sort of timing.  
  
The captain's normal route to the guardhouse takes her past the Silent God's Temple, where her Ma is buried, but she must have made her peace with not paying her respects today. Because today her inflexible routine has been broken for the first time in Alasdair's recollection, and again, Alasdair can only deduce that she has superlative, ever-vigilant spies in her employ, or else a preternatural sense that tingles whenever he chooses to do something out of his own ordinary routine.  
  
When Alasdair and the prince step unwittingly out into her path, she greets the prince with all due ceremony, but acknowledges Alasdair only by way of a very complicated series of eyebrow movements and miniscule twitches of her mouth.  
  
To most people they would probably resemble the reaction of someone desperately trying to hold in a sneeze, but Alasdair, who has been her friend for more than twenty years, deciphers them to mean, 'If he's attempting to kidnap you, just give me a signal, and I'll twat him over the head. Whilst he's distracted by threatening to have me flogged, you can leg it as fast as you can."  
  
Or something along those lines, in any case.  
  
Alasdair's answer does not require the same level of simpatico to interpret, as it's intended to convey what shrugs generally do: 'I have no fucking idea what's going on.'  
  
"Captain, what a fortuitous meeting." The prince's tone is as smooth as warm honey, and just as sickly sweet. "We were making our way to the guardhouse to speak with you."  
  
The captain looks to Alasdair for confirmation, but all he can offer her is another shrug to say, 'You know as much as me'.  
  
Obviously giving up on getting any sense out of him for the moment, she asks the prince, "How can I help you, Your Highness?"  
  
"I've been so impressed by what I've seen of Corporal Kirkland's work that I was hoping he could be seconded to the Palace Guard for, oh, a fortnight or so. Maybe a month. I think he would be able to provide some very valuable training for the men and women already in my employ. His skills with a sword alone are far and above any I've seen displayed on their practice yard."  
  
Alasdair's wounded glare is meant to communicate, 'What the fuck?' to anyone who so much as glances his way, but both the prince and captain are too caught up in their silent battle of traded inquisitorial stares to notice him giving it.  
  
He clears his throat, and tries the direct route. "What the—"  
  
"Corporal Kirkland is, as you know, is one of the key investigators in a murder case," the captain says, her voice low and challenging. "I'm not sure the Town Guard can spare him, or his expertise."  
  
"I have no intention of keeping him from playing a role in that particular investigation." The register of the prince's voice, too, has dropped into something close to what Alasdair has recently begun to regard as his normal pitch. His heavy Gallian accent fades away along with it, until all that remains is a faint hint which curls warmly around the centre of the odd word. "Given that M. Martinez spent one of the last nights of his life attending a party held at the palace, I imagine he could very well have left behind some evidence that might be essential in piecing together what occurred in his final days."  
  
"I agree," the captain says, sounding very assured for all that it sounds like unmitigated horse shit to Alasdair, even despite his being aware, as she is not, that the palace – in the form of the prince, at least – is holding many secrets that are of the utmost importance to the case. "Though I assume you'll allow that the Town Guard would still have the right to recall Corporal Kirkland from your service at any time, if we have need of him."  
  
"Of course," the prince says. "I'm not asking this of you with any intent to deprive the Guards, Captain, and I'm certain that the corporal will continue his work with you regardless of where he spends his shifts. Much of his free time seems to be given over to this investigation already, as it is. He was just telling me before we ran into you that he's been able to uncover the name of the woman who was poisoned, entirely off his own bat."  
  
"You have?" The captain sounds neither impressed nor suspicious, merely grateful. She turns to look at Alasdair expectantly. "What is she called, Corporal?"  
  
Alasdair is almost reluctant to answer, because it feels too much like stealing credit he doesn't deserve, but as the woman and her family are far more important than his principles in this instance, he makes himself say, "Mrs Helen Spenser. Her wife and parents all live in Eastgate. On Brown Street."  
  
"I'll make sure they're informed straight away," the captain tells him, and then she says to the prince, "A fortnight, Your Highness, pending a review at the end of the first week. That's as long as I'm willing to offer."  
  
"Thank you, Captain," the prince says.  
  
Clearly, Alasdair is superfluous when it comes to deciding the course of his own life, as the captain and prince nod respectfully, then shake hands to seal the deal, all without asking him the most pertinent of questions.  
  
"What if I refuse to go?" he asks, when the self-appointed arbiters of his fate step back from one another. "I don't think I want to join the Palace Guard, even if it is only for a couple of weeks."  
  
"They pay four silvers a day, Corporal," the prince says. "Which will also be extended to you for the duration of your secondment."  
  
Four silvers a day? It was no wonder Sergeant Jenkins deserted the Town Guard so readily when the palace recruiters came knocking at the start of the year. If they'd ever approached Alasdair with that fact instead of trying to appeal to his non-existent royalist sympathies, he probably would have signed up instead of telling them to piss off.

At the end of it, he'd have enough put by to pay for the pair of boots Michael so desperately needs, and likely a new winter coat for Dylan, as well. He hates that his principles are just as weak to mercenary concerns as they are human sentiment, but after ten years of barely scraping by day after day, it's become second nature to succumb to them.  
  
He has his limits, of course, the hard lines in the sand he would never cross for any reason, but forcing himself to play nice with the snobs in the Palace Guard for a spell certainly doesn't constitute one of them.  
  
"Thank you for giving me this opportunity, sirs," he says, saluting both of them.  
  
He thinks he may have overdone the enthusiasm a tad, because the prince starts to smirk, and the captain boggles at him like he's just sprouted a second, inexplicably cheerful head.  
  
Still, after extracting a promise from Alasdair that he'll drop by the guardhouse to give a report on his day before returning home, she takes her leave of them easily enough.  
  
"That went well, I think," the prince says as they set off walking towards the palace again.  
  
"For you, maybe," Alasdair says. "I'm going to be stuck standing in front of a gate for eight hours at a stretch, which, I imagine, will be even more boring than patrolling."  
  
"You'll be doing no such thing." The prince's eyes appear to catch on something in the middle distance that he finds particularly interesting, and he focuses on it to the exception of all else. "I intend for you to act as my personal guard."  
  
"What?!" Alasdair spins on his heel with the intention of chasing after the captain and begging her to reconsider her decision, but the prince grabs at his sleeve and holds him still.  
  
"Since Mr Martinez's murder, my sister has often expressed her concern that I'm too often out on my own without protection," he says in an undertone. "My morning rides, for example, are taken unescorted, as are my walks around the palace grounds and so on. I'm sure that it would set her heart at ease to know that I had someone watching my back at such times.  
  
"Besides, it's becoming difficult for me to think up new excuses to visit you, and new reasons to explain your presence at the palace. My personal guard could go wherever I go without raising a single eyebrow in the process."  
  
Whilst Alasdair knows their travels will doubtless include a trip to the prince's hollow tree, maybe even an introduction to his useful friend, and other such excursions essential to his better understanding of the murder investigation, he can't claim to be especially enthused by the prospect. "How am I going to explain _t_ _hat_ to the captain?"  
  
"I'm almost convinced that she knew what I was going to ask of her before I did," the prince says with a small smile. "Your captain's a very intelligent woman, Corporal, and I don't suppose she would ever have agreed to my request if she didn't expect you to take every opportunity it affords you to learn more about me and my movements. I'm still a suspect, am I not?"  
  
"You are, but... I'm not going to be able to discuss anything you show me with the captain, am I? Not without dropping you in a whole heap of shit you've been trying to avoid, anyhow."  
  
"No doubt there will be some information you can pass on, to reassure her that your loss has not been in vain. I'll leave the details to your discretion."  
  
Once again, Alasdair has to wonder how he could possibly have inspired the prince to trust him that much over the course of a few short days. He really must have been desperate for someone to confide in.  
  
Alasdair, on the other hand, is not lacking in potential confidantes, and can't even work up enough faith in the prince to give any credence to the merits of his clothing suggestions. "This is all well and good, but why did I have to get dressed up, exactly? Won't I get given a uniform?"  
  
"I don't think the palace armoury will have any breastplates to fit you, and I know I've never ordered any shirts in your size. I want you to start work as soon as we arrive at the palace, Corporal, and no-one who knows me would believe I could tolerate a sloppily dressed personal guard, even for a day. As this plan only came to me during the night, that outfit was the best I could improvise on such short notice. Nothing else in your wardrobe seemed suitable."  
  
He seems completely unabashed to admit that he'd been poking his nose into Alasdair's personal things – just as Alasdair had feared he might – even when subjected to a bout of very pointed glowering and accusations of betrayal.  
  
The man, Alasdair has begun to suspect, obviously possesses very little in the way of shame.  
  
When they finally wend their way out through Old Town's Brass House gate and onto the wide, gravelled road leading up towards the palace, the prince's steps lighten and he rolls his neck and shakes out his arms as though a great weight has just been lifted from his shoulders.  
  
"See," he says, grinning at Alasdair, "it wasn't too arduous, after all, Corporal. We made good our escape unobserved save for the captain, so now you won't have to worry about your neighbours thinking we're" – the word seems to catch just as hard in the prince's throat as it had Alasdair's, judging by his spluttering – "fucking, as you so bluntly put it last night."  
  
Alasdair hums noncommittally, because he really doesn't want to encourage their conversation to drift in that direction yet again, but his lack of engagement doesn't dissuade the prince one iota.  
  
"You know, I've never heard you refer to the romantic entanglements of others as anything other than courtship, and yet when it comes to the relationship people might imagine you and I have, you choose to describe it in the crudest possible terms. Why is that?"  
  
"Courtship's a little like your Gallian betrothals, sir," Alasdair says, gladly latching on to the broadest possible interpretation of what the prince has just asked him. "You don't enter into one unless you're seriously considering getting married at the end of it. No-one would ever believe we were courting."  
  
"Maybe not," the prince says, "but why wouldn't they instead think that we're involved in an _affaire de coeur_ , as my maman would say. Or meeting for a tryst; engaged in a fling; making love—"  
  
Alasdair snorts loudly. He's never heard that particular term spoken aloud save for when Dylan has been put into an even soppier mood than usual by one of his romantic novels and is swooning over the dalliances of the characters therein. "Do people really call it that?"  
  
"I just did," the prince says, his tone hovering on the cusp of something that sounds superficially like annoyance, but isn't quite close enough to mistake as such. "Corporal, do you really think there's nothing lying between fucking and courtship?"

"Fucking, courtship, _making love_ , it's all pretty much the same to me, sir. I told you before, I'm really not interested in any of it."

Gods, Alasdair hates this sort of talk.   
  
And he's sick and tired of it coming from the prince. He realises that, more than anything, he wants to put a stop to all the sly hints and suggestions and little digs for information. All his silence does, it seems, is keep the hated subject at the forefront of the prince's mind as he relentlessly chews on it like a dog with a bone.  
  
The prince glances towards him and then away again, and though his tongue darts out to nervously wet his lips, he doesn't say a word.  
  
It's not as if Alasdair has anything to be ashamed of, and he's also sick and tired of making himself feel as though he has in his efforts to evade the prince's curiosity. "Just ask me, sir. Lots of people do. I'm used to it."  
  
"Are you currently involved with anyone?" the prince says in a thin croak of a voice.  
  
It's not the question Alasdair had been expecting. At all. Most just ask him, whether outright – as Lukas Bondevik had in his own blunt way – or circumspectly, if he's a eunuch of some sort.  
  
"No, sir," he says. "I'm not fucking anyone, or courting them, or any of those other things you mentioned. I never have and I likely never will."  
  
"So you've never," the prince's voice cracks a little more, "taken a lover, then?"  
  
"Not unless you count me kissing Luise Beilshmidt when we were fifteen, and then her brother, Gilbert, when I was sixteen. I personally don't, because all those experiences served to prove to them was that neither was interested in lads, and to me, that I wasn't interested in the whole kit and caboodle."  
  
Alasdair's conscience twinges slightly, because that hasn't precisely held true since then, but, on the other hand, what happened between him and Lukas was private – for all that its denouement was played out in the most humiliatingly of public ways – and not something he wants to share with the prince.  
  
More than likely, it was nothing more than a fluke of circumstance anyway, and not really indicative of any greater truth concerning his preferences or inclinations.  
  
"I see. I..." The prince flushes and discovers some faraway point of note to fix his eyes upon again. "I hope I've never made you uncomfortable, Corporal. With my, um..."  
  
He seems disinclined to finish his thought, but Alasdair has a decent idea of what it was going to be, all the same. "Only inasmuch as I don't know how to flirt, or not flirt, or anything along those lines," he says. "That sort of thing doesn't bother me in and of itself, I'm just not sure how to deal with it properly. Since you told me that you're not interested in commoners that way, I realised it that it doesn't really mean anything if you do seem like you're flirting with me, right?"  
  
"Right," the prince echoes weakly.  
  
"Which, to be fair, could be a pretty shitty game to play with someone who might be inclined to want to read things differently. You were just lucky that I'm not one of them, really."  
  
"Indeed."  
  
Alasdair, too, suddenly feels as though some heavy burden he hadn't been aware he was carrying has been lifted from him. "Gods, maybe I shouldn't have kept on pussyfooting around all that for so long. It's good to finally clear the air."  
  
"Yes, it's better that we both know exactly where each other stands on such things." The prince's smile is much too sharp and pointed to be one of his real ones. "Now we can concentrate entirely on more important matters."

 

 


	28. Chapter 28

This time, the prince doesn't cause a stir upon his homeward return but rather a ripple of unease.  
  
As he approaches the front gate, the guards posted there gape at him and then exchange looks darkened by the specific shade of horror reserved for those in fear for their livelihoods. Clearly rubber-kneed in anxiety, they end up almost genuflecting to him when they bow.  
  
Even after the prince has reassured them that he simply exited the palace grounds very early that morning via a little used side gate behind the walled orchard, and thus they won't be punished for dereliction of duty despite not knowing he was abroad, the blood does not return to their ashen faces.  
  
And then, when Alasdair and the prince meander along the broad, tree-lined avenue which leads to the palace itself, every gardener, under-gardener and bustling servant of undetermined title, stops, doffs their cap, and then watches their progress thereafter with wide, anxious eyes.  
  
"You didn't tell anyone you might be gone come morning, did you?" Alasdair asks, once they reach a relatively unpopulated stretch of the gardens.  
  
"I hadn't intended on _being_ gone, if you recall," the prince says, sounding slightly offended to be accused of such an oversight. "And if I was thinking with any clarity last night, I wouldn't have allowed you to persuade me to stay.  
  
"I can only imagine that I must have received a letter that M. Jansen thought urgent, and upon finding that I wasn't in either my chambers or the stable yard, worked himself – and everyone else, it seems – into a state of agitation over my whereabouts. No-one else would even think to search for me this early in the day."  
  
If M. Jansen had ever been agitated, or even mildly perturbed, about his missing employer, his recuperation was both swift and complete. Though he is standing to attention in the palace's entrance hall like a loyal retainer awaiting his master's return, he does not hurry to the prince once he steps foot inside.  
  
His walk is sedate, his expression serene, and when he eventually greets the prince, he betrays no hint of emotion, positive or negative. "Your Highness," he says with dry courtesy, "there was a letter from your father in this morning's post. Your instructions were that you should be informed immediately in the event of such an occurrence, but, unfortunately, I was unable to locate you."  
  
"I rose early to attend a meeting with the Old Town guard captain," the prince says. "It was very hastily arranged, and I'm afraid I must have forgotten to tell you about it in all the rush."  
  
Alasdair isn't sure why the prince considers himself a poor actor, because the lie is so fluidly spoken that he himself might have been taken in by it if he hadn't been witness to the truth of the matter.  
  
M. Jansen looks neither convinced nor unconvinced by the prince's words, but then again, he seems to be the type of man who considers wearing an actual expression a needless extravagance, given his face's complete lack of animation. "I hope it went well, Your Highness."  
  
"It did," the prince says brightly. "She agreed to allow me to employ Corporal Kirkland here as a personal guard for a short while. I don't feel safe walking the streets unprotected anymore, not whilst that poisoner is still at large."  
  
"Your sister will be delighted by your decision, I'm sure," M. Jansen says, his tone as bland as guardhouse gruel. "Shall I ask for his name added to the payroll accounts temporarily?"  
  
"Please do, and could you also send word to my tailor that I need her to visit at her earliest possible convenience? The corporal will require a uniform, and I'm sure we don't have any ready made in his size."  
  
"I imagine not," says M. Jansen without so much as glancing in Alasdair's direction. "Now, the letter, Your Highness?"  
  
His inflection does not change appreciably, but he manages to sound chiding all the same.  
  
The prince certainly acts as though he's been reprimanded, saying, almost meekly, "We must get to it at once. I'm burning to know what pearls of wisdom _mon cher père_ has seen fit to bestow upon me."  
  
M. Jansen obviously has a very powerful weapon in his personal arsenal, and Alasdair is impressed by how deftly he puts it to use.  
  
"Will the corporal be joining us?"  
  
"He will be accompanying me everywhere from now on," the prince says. "One can never be too safe."  
  
"Quite so, Your Highness."  
  
The tiniest pin scratch of a wrinkle appears on M. Jansen's brow, suggesting that he might not be particularly pleased with that information, but he does not question it further. Instead, he makes an about face with all the economical precision of a soldier on parade, and then marches off in the direction of his office; his steps beating out a strong, steady rhythm – one-two-three-four – and his arms swinging straight and stiff.  
  
Alasdair idly wonders if M. Jansen might once have been an army man.  
  
His office definitely has the appearance of one organised with military exactitude. Just as the last time Alasdair had visited it, the large desk is completely clear of pens, papers and the other sorts of detritus which, in Alasdair's experience, tends to build in such places despite its owner's best efforts, and the bookshelves are stacked neatly, with each volume's spine perfectly aligned with that of its neighbours.  
  
It would be easy to believe that no time had elapsed between then and now, were it not for the addition of a single narrow and high-backed chair tucked in one corner of the small room.  
  
The prince moves to sit in it with the alacrity of a long-ingrained habit, but at the last moment he hesitates, arse hovering mere inches above the seat, and asks Alasdair, "Should I call for someone to bring you a chair, too, Corporal? You could be standing for quite some time, otherwise."  
  
There's enough concern in his eyes and in his voice that Alasdair's immediate thought is that the man is worried his back might not hold out for the duration, which is surprising, and the offer is tempting, but all Alasdair has ever read about and seen of personal guards has them standing to stoic attention at their charge's shoulder at all times. He might not have chosen the position, but now he's had it foisted on him regardless, he intends to do it properly.  
  
He doesn't want the prince to feel as though he's not getting his four silvers' worth.  
  
"Naw," he says. "I'm all right, thank you, sir."  
  
The prince looks doubtful, but if he does have any further quibbles, M. Jansen does not give him the opportunity to share them. He grabs a large stack of papers from a nearby shelf, and then, without warning or preamble, launches into reading aloud the topmost one.  
  
If Alasdair hadn't already known that the author was the prince's father, he never would have been able to correctly guess their identity. There is no warmth in any of the words, no well wishes or hopes for the recipient's health and happiness, just a bare retelling of the latest happenings in Lutetia and along the border with Germania.

Only the very last line gives any indication that it is anything other than an account that has been copied many times and sent out to anyone with a vague interest in the current state of affairs in Gallia. Even then, it does not refer to the prince as 'Francis' or even 'son', only that the king has heard several reports that the Governor of Northern Britannia is performing his new role 'tolerably'.  
  
The prince listens to the whole thing impassively, his hands folded together on his lap and his eyelids loosely closed, only stirring from this apparent reverie when M. Jansen grows weary of watching him expectantly and asks, "How should I reply, Your Highness?"  
  
"I'll write to him myself," the prince says, stretching his arms out high above his head, his legs out in front of him, as though working out some tension that had been pulling every muscle in body painfully tight despite his relaxed posture. "I think such things require a personal touch, don't you, M. Jansen?"  
  
M. Jansen, who doubtless disdains all personal attachments as useless fripperies, has no answer to that, though he does eventually bob his head in something resembling acquiescence, and likely even that tiny concession, Alasdair thinks, is only grudgingly given because he believes that the second letter in his pile has been left waiting far too long.  
  
"This is from the Paupers' Order again," he says as he unfolds it. "Thanking you for the gift of the old Post Office, and your generous donation. They say it will pay for all of the renovation work required to convert the building into a shelter, as they described in their previous correspondence, and once it's completed, they intend to name one of the dormitories after you."  
  
"How delightful," the prince says, beaming out one of the more genuine looking smiles in his repertoire. "Write to thank them for the honour."  
  
"And then they'll feel obliged to thank you for your thank you," Alasdair feels compelled to point out. When the prince looks at him questioningly, he adds, "It happens to Dyl all the time. He'll write a thank you note for a gift, say, and then they'll write back to give thanks for his lovely letter, so he'll feel obliged to tell them that their letter was equally lovely, and so on and so forth until one or the other of them ends up pretending that their reply has got lost in the post somewhere, or another birthday rolls around and it starts up all over again."  
  
The prince chuckles. "What would be your suggestion, then, Corporal?"  
  
Alasdair doesn't really have one; he had simply forgotten for an instant that they weren't actually engaged in a conversation where he would be reasonably expected to give his input. After a moment's thought, however, he says, "Maybe go and visit the building whilst they're working on it? Show an interest rather than just _saying_ you're interested."  
  
"I..." The prince's gaze skips to M. Jansen, whose grey eyes have taken on a distinctly steely cast. "Perhaps I could do both," he finishes diplomatically.  
  
Suitably placated, M. Jansen continues on. Every guild in Deva wants the prince to attend its quarterly meeting – the prince declines each with little thought and even less expressed regret – and the priests and priestesses of every religion want him to know that their deity could guarantee him a peaceful rule if he would just attend one of their services next temple day.  
  
There are reports from the army camp at Luguvalium and the guardhouse in Eboracum, invitations to attend balls, concertos, operas and plays, and countless more letters written for no better reason, it seems, than ensuring that the author's name is spoken aloud in front of the prince, because they certainly don't appear to have any real goal in mind.  
  
Judging by the ache building at the base of Alasdair's spine, the reading of them takes more than an hour, and the prince's replies half that span again. He answers each, though, with more patience than Alasdair thought possible for him, and using sounder judgement than he would have expected.  
  
Finally, M. Jansen stands silent and empty-handed, and the prince shifts his weight forwards until he's perched on the very edge of his chair's seat.  
  
"Does that conclude our business for this morning?” he asks.  
  
“It does, Your Highness," M. Jansen replies; toneless again, but very clearly a dismissal all the same.  
  
The prince barely waits long enough for the words to finish leaving his secretary's mouth before making a dash for the door, moving so quickly that Alasdair is hard-pressed to keep pace with him.  
  
"You're going to have to give me a bit of warning if you're planning on haring off like that, sir," he grumbles. "I can't very well watch your back if it's disappeared off over the horizon, can I?"  
  
"I'm sorry, Corporal," the prince says, though he sounds far too cheerful to be anything approaching apologetic. "I can't bear spending a moment longer than strictly necessary in that horrid little chair M. Jansen always drags out for me to use. I have no earthly clue where he found it, as it doesn't match any furniture orders _I've_ ever signed, but he insists that it's the only one that could possibly fit in that space.  
  
"I've told him time and again that it makes me feel as though all my joints are being twisted out of their sockets when I use it, but time and again, there it is. I'm inclined to think the pain is actually the point of the damn thing, because it definitely ensures that our meetings are conducted very efficiently."  
  
"Very clever of him, if so," Alasdair says, smirking.  
  
"If he hadn't thought of it first, I would probably had to come up with something along the same lines myself. I can't imagine being able to endure them if they were any longer than they already are. I'm not exactly at my best in the morning."  
  
"Really?" Alasdair says, playing at innocence. "I never would have guessed."  
  
The prince scowls at him, but his heart doesn't really seem to be in it, and it soon dissolves into a contented little sigh.  
  
"I usually take a turn around the garden to stretch my legs to try and recover from the chair," he says. "Would you care to join me?"  
  
"I don't think you have to ask that sort of thing anymore, sir," Alasdair says. "The whole point of personal guarding, as I understand it, is that I go wherever you go, so I'm ready to leap into action if it turns out there's someone unsavoury lurking in your shrubbery or the like."  
  
"Oh." The prince blinks up at him slowly. "Oh, well... Please, follow me."  
  
Alasdair considers pointing out that the 'please' probably isn't necessary either, but then going without it sounds too much like an order for comfort, and the prince hadn't seemed to like giving him an order any more than Alasdair liked receiving it, the last time that had occurred.  
  
Though Alasdair had presumed the prince meant to take a leisurely stroll, when they move out into the gardens not only does he practically sprint towards the grotto, bu once there, he throws himself down onto a narrow bench at its base that looks no more comfortable than the chair he's just professed himself so glad to have escaped from.  
  
"Doesn't that defeat the object somewhat, sir?" Alasdair asks him.  
  
"Maybe I have two objects, Corporal," the prince says. "I've taken a brisk walk, my legs are well and truly stretched, and now I want to sit somewhere quiet where I won't be disturbed for a while." He waves a hand towards the ugly heap of stone at his back. "Even the gardeners who helped build this thing don't like to spend any time around it, it's such an unpleasant sight."  
  
"Brilliantly designed for its actual purpose then, sir?" Alasdair conjectures. Really, there can be no other explanation for it, save that it had been designed by a person with no talent or taste who had never seen the outside world before.  
  
"Exactly," the prince says, grinning. He remains in silence for a moment or two and then says, so softly that Alasdair has to bend almost double just to hear him, "I'm afraid that, now we're here, I'm not entirely sure what our next move should be. What would you suggest, Corporal?"  
  
"As I see it, there are only three points where someone could have intercepted the letters which would have led them to Martinez and Spenser," Alasdair whispers back. "One, they may have discovered that hollow tree where the Seeker's been leaving his notes for you, and read them before you managed to pick them up. After that, they could have followed them around until they caught them on their own and unprotected, which just so happened to be in Old Town, where you'd instructed them to go and meet your friend.  
  
"Or two, which seems more likely to me, either your friend's involved in some way, or else the attacker managed to get their hands on whatever instructions you passed on to them, naming the rendezvous spot and so on.  
  
"And then, lastly, there's your letters themselves. Which could have been read before you sent them, or by whomever you entrusted to get them to Martinez and Spenser. I doubt the victims themselves were flashing them around to anyone outside their nearest and dearest, if that."  
  
The prince frowns slightly. "I still can't believe that my friend has anything to do with this, but I suppose we must investigate them eventually, if only to be sure we've covered every conceivable angle.  
  
"Perhaps we should start with the Seeker's letters then, as it does appear as though that's the least likely of all those possibilities as you've presented them. Then at least we'll know we can strike it from the list entirely. How do you feel about staking out a tree in the middle of nowhere overnight, just on the off-chance that it's been compromised?"  
  
"Can't say it's a very appealing prospect, sir, but I suppose it'll have to be done some time, and it might as well be sooner rather than later," Alasdair says. "I hope you might see your way to letting me knock off early today so I can go home and have a quick nap in preparation?"  
  
"I wasn't anticipating that you'd be going home at all, Corporal," the prince says, sounding puzzled. "As you said yourself, if you're going to be playing the part of my personal guard, you would be expected to stay with me at all times. I was thinking of asking for the little room in my chambers I told you about the other day to be prepared for your use for just that purpose."  
  
It shouldn't come as any surprise that the prince could be so utterly cavalier about making decisions concerning Alasdair's time and living arrangements without consulting him, but it still does. Even though he'd recognised and accepted before that, whilst the prince might be offering the trappings of friendship, he doesn't consider them equals, he'd still foolishly allowed himself to think they might be equal partners in this endeavour, at least.  
  
"I can't stay here, sir," he says, fighting a mostly losing battle to keep his voice low and level. "I left my house with nothing more than the clothes on my back, for a start."  
  
"Anything you need, I shall be more than happy to provide, Corporal," the prince says airily, which annoys Alasdair even more, because it's so far from being the real crux of the matter that it's almost insulting.  
  
"My brothers don't know where I am right now, and, believe it or not, they might actually start to worry if I disappear for a fortnight without a word of warning. And my captain's expecting me to go and report to her later, remember? I do have my own fucking life, you know, even if it might not seem like very much of one to you."  
  
The prince pales, and his mouth works soundlessly for a moment before he spits out, "Of course I know that, and I can't understand how you could believe I think so little of you that I would ever forget it." He pauses, swallows heavily, and then continues with: "I admit that I've perhaps become a little carried away, but it's such a relief to finally be able to talk to someone about all of this, to finally make some strides towards unravelling what's been happening lately, that I keep getting ahead of myself.  
  
"I should have asked you first, and for that I apologise."  
  
He looks so earnest that Alasdair finds he can't seem to sustain his irritation in the face of it. "Aye, well, I don't really like being told what to do, you ken." The prince gives him a watery smile, and Alasdair quickly adds, "Maybe you do have every right to it, being my governor and all, but _this_? This is has to be just you and me right now, doesn't it, so I think I should get to have a say in how we go about things from now on."  
  
The prince nods tightly. "That seems fair." He takes a long, wavering breath and then says, "Corporal, for the sake of our investigation, I think it would be better if you stayed at the palace for the time being. Would that be possible?"  
  
For the sake of the investigation, Alasdair's willing to do just about anything, so, much as the stubborn core of him would like to object for a while longer, simply to discover how willing the prince really is to yield in his favour, he can't bring himself to do anything other than agree.  
  
"Give me this afternoon to myself so I can sort things out at home," he says, "then after that, you can consider me entirely at your disposal."

 

 


	29. Chapter 29

The capriciousness of Northern Brittonic weather swiftly puts paid to any plans the prince might have had to enjoy his peace and quiet for a little while longer after he and Alasdair finish their conversation.    
  
The sky had been clear when they set out into the garden, but with nothing more than a gust of wind from the east, the air grows chill, the sun's light dims, and a slight drizzle soon begins to fall.  
  
"I was about to suggest that we take a walk down to the lake," the prince says, glancing up at the bank of dark clouds gathered overhead. "Your brother's assigned to work there this morning, and I thought you would like to take the chance to speak to him. Maybe if we ran, we might be able to beat the worst of the rain?"  
  
"Shouldn't think so, sir," says Alasdair, who, like most other Devans, is a keen amateur meteorologist. "Looks like it's just about to piss it down. We'll be lucky if we even make it back inside in time."  
  
The prince springs straight to his feet, but his words bespeak a much greater reluctance than his actions. "If you're sure," he says. "I understood you wanted to let your family know about your change in circumstances as soon as possible, though."  
  
"Art can wait," Alasdair says. "I can't say that I'm looking forward to that particular conversation, and if I can somehow manage to put it off for long enough that we never have to have it at all? So much the better."  
  
"You think he'll be displeased with our new arrangement?"  
  
"He'll find some reason to be, I'm sure. He's very rarely _pleased_ by anything I do."  
  
"You don't get along, then?"  
  
Alasdair is sufficiently inured by now to the prince's apparently boundless curiosity regarding his life that the question annoys him solely because of its timing.  
  
"He's stubborn, opinionated, and bad-tempered, so we end up arguing a lot of the time. And, ha ha, yes, I know, that does sound very familiar, and yes, we probably rub each other up the wrong way because we're too much alike. But he's my brother, and I only see him one afternoon a week, so we try to play as nicely with each other as we can nowadays. Is that everything, sir? Can we get a move on before we get soaked?" Alasdair says, motioning for the prince to shift his arse towards the palace.  
  
The prince makes some vaguely offended noises in response that Alasdair doesn't care to listen to too closely, but does eventually comply. The delay proves costly, however, as the heaven's due opening catches them still yards shy of safety.  
  
Though their last ditch race for shelter is made quickly enough that Alasdair's own clothes are barely even damp, the prince chatters his teeth and shivers and generally carries on like a man who's just been hauled out of the frigid waters of the Oceanus Germanicus.  
  
"Urgh, I'm going to have to change. I can't bear the sensation of wet fabric against my skin." He shudders, plucking disconsolately at the front of his shirt. "If you'd care to accompany me, I suppose this is as good a time as any to show you around your new quarters."

 

 

* * *

 

  
  
When they arrive once more at the prince's chambers, the promised excursion is not immediately forthcoming.  
  
The prince seems unwilling to spend even a second longer than necessary in his 'drenched' state, and pauses for just enough time to fling a towel in Alasdair's general direction before retreating hurriedly towards the door on the left hand side of his bedroom.  
  
"My dressing room," he explains as he pushes it open. "Please, make yourself comfortable. I won't be long."  
  
Alasdair roughly scrubs his hair dry with the towel, and then drapes it around his shoulders to wick up the hint of moisture that remains caught in his shirt despite his rising body heat, but otherwise finds himself at a loss when it comes to following the prince's suggestion.  
  
The hearth lies cold and empty, and his sole choices for seating himself are the chair pulled up to the prince's desk – a straight-backed, unpadded thing that looks as if it would be inimicable to both arses and backs alike – or his bed, which is a disconcerting prospect when viewed with the clear eyes that pain had robbed Alasdair of during his last stay.  
  
Instead, he whiles away his time in contemplation of the map he had noticed but not had chance to study closely then.  
  
It's even more detailed than he'd supposed it to be, showing not only the narrowest of alleyways and ginnels in Old Town, but each and every building, it seems, that lies within Deva's encircling walls.  
  
He traces Ashfield Street with the tip of one finger until he finds his own home, and if he closes one eye and practically presses his nose up against the paper, he can just about make out a couple of symbols drawn in the centre of the tiny square that represents it. The first is a pestle and mortar, he thinks, but he can resolve nothing out of the second, which remains an incomprehensible squiggle no matter how hard he stares at it.  
  
"I didn't helpfully circle the addresses I sent to Spenser and Martinez, if that's what you were looking for."  
  
Alasdair jumps so hard at the sudden sound of the prince's voice that he only narrowly avoids slamming his forehead against the wall behind the map. Clearly, he's going to have to ask the man to start wearing a bell around his neck, because he'll make a pretty poor personal guard if even his employer can sneak up on him unawares.  
  
He takes a moment to centre himself again, then turns to face the prince with deliberate slowness so that he can keep hold of the few, sad scraps of dignity that might be remaining to him.  
  
A pointless exercise, it transpires, as the prince is so thoroughly distracted by cinching his sword belt that he has no attention to spare for anything else.  
  
He is dressed, as far as it's within Alasdair's limited ability to discern, in the same outfit he'd been wearing when they first met in the conservatory, right down to the ridiculously over-decorated sword.  
  
"On the very day I agree to be your personal guard, you decide to start wearing a weapon again?" Alasdair says, nodding towards it. "It's not exactly a compliment to my abilities, is it, sir."  
  
"The two are entirely unrelated, I assure you," the prince says. "This so-called sword is really little better than an over-sized toothpick. It _is_ a symbol of my office, though, and I really should start carrying it more often than I do, even if the pommel does keep catching itself on my shirt cuffs and snagging threads in upholstery.  
  
"Which reminds me, I'll need to order you a sword from the armoury before you take on your new mantle in truth. That claymore of yours might be a fine weapon, but it's hardly fit for purpose, I think. Not the sort of thing you can go swinging around in close quarters."

"And you're anticipating that'll happen often enough that we need to take account of it?" Alasdair asks, wondering for the first time if the prince perhaps hasn't been completely honest with him, and does in fact _need_ a personal guard and not just the pretense of one.  
  
Perhaps some of his petitioners are really very persistent about those party invitations, and try and force him to attend at knife-point if he happens to decline them.  
  
"Not at all. You simply need to look the part as much as act the part, Corporal, if anyone is to believe you are what we say you are. Once you're outfitted in your new uniform, I'll find a sword that suits." The prince smiles crookedly. "Now, if you'll permit me a moment or two more of your time, I'll take you on the grand tour."  
  
Alasdair doubts that a tour of bedchambers – palatial or no – no more deserves the epithet of 'grand' than a tour of the guardhouse would have done, but he's willing to reserve judgement for the time being, at least. For all he knows, the door on the right hand side of the bedroom might lead to sights beyond his wildest imaginings, although a sitting room does seem infinitely more likely.  
  
"Well, as I said, this is my dressing room," the prince says, gesturing for Alasdair to come and look through the still open door. "It's much as you'd expect, I'm sure."  
  
Alasdair's own dressing room consists of the small patch of floorboards between the foot of his bed and his wardrobe, and every book he's ever read that mentions them has never seen fit to elaborate precisely what they consist of, so he hadn't any expectations for the prince's to either live up or live down to.  
  
It's a moderately-sized room, made bright by the light streaming in through a series of tall windows that cover the wall at its far end, and flanked on both sides by wardrobes, chests, and sets of drawers in a variety of sizes and styles.  
  
At the centre of them all stands a table surmounted by a huge mirror, on which a number of combs, brushes and intricate little cut glass bottles are arrayed in neat, regimented lines that run across its entire breadth, two deep.  
  
It seems to be pretty much wasted space to Alasdair, seeing as though he assumes there's nothing to prevent the prince getting dressed in his bedroom, just like the majority of Devans somehow manage to do every day.  
  
"If we ever need to talk where there's no chance of us being interrupted or overheard, then we can either come in here or my bedroom," the prince says. "No-one is permitted to enter either save for myself and anyone I personally choose to invite."  
  
"Not even your servants?" Alasdair asks; sceptically, as he hasn't noticed so much as a speck of dust besmirching the place.  
  
"Not even my servants," the prince confirms. "It's another habit I picked up from my time in Lutetia. My father is of the opinion that no-one can be expected to respect a man who does not dress himself every morning, or who is incapable of keeping his quarters in an respectable fashion. Thus, I was given sole dominion over my own chambers whilst I stayed with him, and he was given to dropping in unannounced several times a week, day or night, just to make sure I was keeping them in order.  
  
"Quite apart from my ability to wield a dust cloth with some skill, it left me with a desire for a room where I can expect to remain in complete privacy, as I'm sure you can imagine. I employ no body servant, Corporal, and the maids do not work here."  
  
Alasdair also imagines that it explains why all of his furniture is so plain. Fancy carvings only seem like a good idea to those who don't have to try and keep them clean.  
  
"The other rooms in my chambers _are_ open to the servants, however," the prince says, leading Alasdair over to the door on the opposite side of his bedroom.  
  
It opens up onto a short corridor containing five doors, the first of which Alasdair already knows is the route back out into the palace proper. The other four, unsurprisingly, do not conceal anything that could even charitably be described as 'grand'.  
  
The first leads to a cosy sitting room, where a well-lit fireplace is surrounded by a semicircle of plump sofas; the second to a study whose walls are covered with shelves containing more books than Alasdair would have thought possible for one man to have time enough in his life to read ("Feel free to borrow as many as you'd like," the prince urges, when he catches sight of Alasdair eyeing them avariciously); the third to a white-tiled bathroom – something else Alasdair has only ever read about – containing a wood-encased water closet and bathtub; and the last to the room which is to be Alasdair's temporary home for the next two weeks.  
  
"It's not much," the prince says as they step inside. He sounds apologetic, even though he's seen Alasdair's own bedroom, and thus knows that this one is not only larger, but far better furnished.  
  
The bed is narrow, but its mattress is deep and its covers look as though they will feel smooth and light, unlike the worn, lumpy blankets Alasdair is used to. The wardrobe and drawers appear to be new, and the carpet underfoot is still plush. Most marvellous of all is the mirror hanging above the wash basin, which is shining clear from side to side and end to end.  
  
"It's nicer than mine," he says.  
  
"I wouldn't say that," the prince demurs. "Yours is—"  
  
He's interrupted by a politely subdued knocking at the chamber's outer door, and he frowns impatiently before excusing himself to answer it.  
  
When he returns moments later, he's grinning so broadly that the top of his head looks about fit to pop off. "I'm afraid I'm going to have to detain you a little longer, Corporal," he says, sounding absolutely delighted by the prospect. "Apparently my tailor is already on her way here."

 

 

* * *

 

  
  
Alasdair hasn't had a great deal of experience with tailors, but those few he has met have been crabbed little old men and women wih faces deep-scored with wrinkles and eyes locked in a permanent squint due to many years bent over doing close work in poor light.  
  
The prince's tailor is a tall, well-proportioned young woman, clad in a dark red dress that's so flatteringly cut to show her figure off to its best advantage that even Alasdair can tell at a glance that she must be a master at her art.  
  
The light cast out from the oil lamps the prince had lit around the sitting room catches on not only her dress's golden embroidery and fair hair, but the silver studs set on the collar of the enormous dog that pads at her heels, making them both seem to shimmer as they move.  
  
The prince certainly seems dazzled by her, pressing her hand ardently to his lips even as she tells him, "You interrupted my breakfast." Her accent is a little heavier than the prince's, but otherwise very similar. "I almost decided not to come but I supposed it was better of me to put my stomach aside.”  
  
She plants a reciprocal kiss on the prince's cheek which lingers for long enough that Alasdair starts to wonder if she might be more than a tailor to the man.

The suspicion deepens when the prince keeps on smiling at her despite of her brusque tone and the distinct lack of bowing and 'Your Highness'ing he seems to expect as his due with just about everyone else.  
  
“And I’m so very glad you did,” he says, in a low, throaty tone Alasdair has never heard him affect before. “I have need of your services; I have a newly hired personal guard who’s in need of some smartening up.”  
  
The tailor studies Alasdair with the careful sort of eye that he'd expect from one of her profession. She doesn't look overly impressed once she's finished sizing him up. Nor does her dog, who prowls his way after the prince has ruffled its ears to its satisfaction. It sniffs at his ankles, and then growls quietly, as if voicing dissatisfaction at his scent.  
  
It's an odd looking beast, powerfully built and taller than any other dog Alasdair has ever seen before. Its skin looks to have been designed for an even bigger dog yet, hanging in loose folds around its eyes and drooping down below its powerful jaws.  
  
"What is that?" Alasdair asks the tailor, because the chance remains that it's not actually a dog at all, but some strange Gallian creature that bears some superficial resemblance to a Brittonic dog although it's actually a member of a different species entirely.  
  
“Petite?" the tailor asks, leaning down to bring her face into much closer proximity to the beast's huge, sharp teeth than seems entirely sensible. "Oh, he was a gift from Francis just after the transition. He felt I needed a bodyguard considering I was all by myself in a strange place.”  
  
A gift from the prince? That would certainly suggest a much closer relationship than the man himself had owned to have with her. Alasdair tries to fit this knowledge alongside the prince's current fawning expression and his earlier tolerance of her lack of formality, but finds it difficult to come to any conclusion other than them being, or having been, engaged in an _affaire de coeur_ , or whatever else the prince would prefer to call those sorts of arrangements.  
  
It doesn't jibe with the prince's assurances that he doesn't bed commoners, but Alasdair can't help but think he might have believed that line a little too readily, anyhow, simply because it was better for his own peace of mind that he do so.  
  
“Corporal," the prince says, looking towards him for the first time since the tailor entered the room, "this is Alaina Labelle." He is, however, very quick to turn his sights back to the tailor. "Alaina, Corporal Alasdair Kirkland. I’d like to commission you to create him something more… fitting to wear while he’s in my employ.”  
  
It takes a moment for the tailor's name to truly sink in, and a moment longer for Alasdair to get over the shock of recognition when he realises where he's heard it before.  
  
“You’re Mlle. Labelle?” he asks her disbelievingly.  
  
“Oh, you’ve heard of me," she says with a small smile. "I’m charmed.”  
  
If Alasdair had ever given any consideration to the type of person his partner might take to courting, Mlle. Alaina Labelle is the very last he would think to picture. It's far easier to imagine Angus with someone more like he is himself – large, lantern jawed, and laconic – than a beautiful woman like the tailor, which her sharp eyes and easy way of talking.  
  
Still, what Alasdair knows about such things could be reliably rendered in few enough words to fit on the back of a postage stamp, so his confusion soon fades. Other people's desires, he's often thought, are truly unfathomable and subject to forces he'll likely never grasp, so they're apt to defy all understanding looking in from the outside.  
  
It's better just to accept it as a truth, however unlikely, and move on.

“My partner mentioned you a while back,” Alasdair says, tentatively patting Petite's head when it shoves a cold, wet nose unceremoniously against the back of his hand. “Angus Walsh. He’s build like a brick sh... Wall.  
  
“I’m afraid that’s not ringing any bells,” Mlle. Labelle says.  
  
Or maybe not. Perhaps Angus hadn't spent the night of his brother's escape in her bed, after all, but accidentally got himself locked in her privy. Or else he had, but he'd so little impressed her that she hadn't cared to remember his name. Either way, Alasdair feels sorry for the poor man.  
  
“None of the usual uniforms will fit him," Mlle. Labelle says, turning again to the prince. "Am I to suppose you want something custom made?”  
  
“You suppose correctly. Something suitable for him to be seen in whilst he’s at my side. Something…" The prince's smile turns slightly sly-looking. "Well, you know what I mean.”  
  
Mlle. Labelle nods. “I’m sure I can work something out. I’ll just take his measurements and everything should be ready by tomorrow evening.”  
  
“Tomorrow evening?” Alasdair asks incredulously. Arthur would struggle to make a simple pair of trousers in such a short span of time, never mind an entire new outfit. “I really don’t want to cause you any hassle.”  
  
“No hassle at all, Corporal Kirkland," Mlle. Labelle says. "Up you get" – she points to the low, wide stool the prince had carried in from his bedroom – "and spread your legs.”  
  
Mlle. Labelle brisk tone reminds Alasdair very much of his captain's, and thus he finds himself obeying her command despite his misgivings. It's a long, long time since he was last measured for clothes – he buys most second hand using nothing more than his own approximate guesses at size for guidance, and the remainder are sewn by Arthur, who took down his measurements years ago in a single session that they both vowed would never be repeated – but he remembers it quite vividly as being a horribly intimate experience for both parties.  
  
“And raise your arms," Mlle. Labelle adds chidingly, when he wraps them protectively around his middle. “I need to take measurements.”  
  
“Is this really necessary?” he asks. "My brother has them written down somewhere. I could just run down and –"  
  
“Alaina will take them perfectly, though. She's the very best at what she does,” the prince says cheerfully, clearly oblivious to Alasdair's discomfort. “She created the uniform for the palace guards as well as all my finest coats and trousers, isn’t that right, Madame?”  
  
Mlle. Labelle ignores him, pulls a tape measure from the purse on her belt, and then advances on Alasdair with the slow, heavy tread of someone filled with dreadful purpose.  
  
Alasdair closes his eyes, and tries to send his mind somewhere far away as Alaina gets to work with the measure. Somewhere that he isn't exposed, under scrutiny, and there aren't hands that keep brushing close to parts of his body where even his own seldom stray beyond those occasions when there's some pressing need or other to necessitate it. He's dimly aware that the prince and Mlle. Labelle are engaged in a conversation, but he can't hear the exact details above the rapid, embarrassed thumping of his own heart, resounding loud in his ears.  
  
Mlle. Labelle finally signals his ordeal is at an end with a softly spoken suggestion that he stand down from the stool, and by the time he cautiously slits his eyes open once more, both she and the prince have left the room.  
  
He takes the opportunity to straighten his clothes and take some deep, calming breaths, and when the prince makes his return, he's confident that his flush has subsided, and that he might look convincingly unruffled by the entire experience.  
  
The prince certainly doesn't appear to be in any way perturbed by the sight of him. "You'll be glad to know that I can't think of a single other reason to detain you," he says, his voice still as light and cheerful as it had been whilst talking to Mlle. Labelle. "You're free to go, Corporal, though I'd like you to come back as close to nine o'clock as you can. And, oh," he adds, seemingly as an afterthought, "make sure to bring plenty of warm clothing with you. I wouldn't want you to freeze on our little stakeout tonight."

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many thanks to nekoian again for writing the lovely story that formed the basis - and provided most of the dialogue for, of the third section of this chapter. It really helped me get to grips with Alaina's character a little better!


	30. Chapter 30

"Four silvers a day?" Dylan repeats for the third time.  
  
And for the third time, Alasdair says, "That's right."  
  
"And all you have to do is follow him around, wearing a sword?"  
  
"Well, I guess if someone tries to stab him, I'll probably have to fight them."  
  
Dylan's brow wrinkles in consternation. "Is that likely?"  
  
"Shouldn't think so, but there's always an outside possibility of it, I suppose."  
  
"Is it any more likely to happen than when you're on one of your usual patrols?"  
  
"Naw," Alasdair says, though with more confidence than he can truly claim to feel.  
  
The prince's life might not be in immediate danger right now, as far as he knows, but there's no way of telling what unpleasantness they might stir up during the course of their investigations. As such unpleasantness remains purely speculative for the time being, though, Alasdair is loath to plant the seed of it in his brother's mind. Dylan will worry about him enough as it is; he really doesn't need the added burden of hypotheticals.  
  
"It seems too good to be true, almost." Dylan laughs shakily. "And you say you'll get room and board, as well?"  
  
"Aye."  
  
"In the prince's chambers?" Dylan says, handling the words as carefully as if they're made from blown glass.  
  
"In my own separate room in his chambers. He doesn't expect me to curl up at the foot of his bed like a fucking guard dog."  
  
Dylan's face is like an open book to Alasdair – one that consists mostly of pictures and small words in large print – so when his cheeks tint pink and his lips purse, his thoughts couldn't be clearer if he'd spoken them aloud.  
  
"He doesn't expect me _in_ his bed, either. Gods' sake, you know I'd never have agreed to that, and I can't believe you'd even _consider_ it."  
  
"I haven't," Dylan assures him hastily, "but what I'm concerned about is that other people certainly will. "  
  
"There's not a great deal I can do about that, is there? " Alasdair shrugs. "Half of them have already decided that we're bedding together simply because he gave me a ride home in his carriage, and they'd no doubt keep on thinking that even if I never so much as looked him again for the rest of my life. I can't win on that score, either way, so I might as well choose the path that has almost sixty silvers at the end of it, regardless."  
  
Dylan regards him shrewdly for a moment, and then says, "There's more to this job than just the money, isn't there? You wouldn't be so blasé about that sort of gossip, if not. Is it something to do with your investigation into the poisonings?  
  
Alasdair hates lying to his brother, and withholding information only marginally less so, but, for the prince's sake, he has no other choice. "It is, but I can't tell you exactly what. Sorry, Dyl."  
  
"I understand," Dylan says with a tight smile. "Promise me you'll be careful, though, Aly? It's bad enough normally, having to wait until the end of your shift to know you'll be coming home in one piece. Two weeks is going to be more than a little nerve-wracking for me."  
  
Alasdair only just manages to check the roll of his eyes. In some ways, it's heartening that his brother is always so concerned for his welfare, but, on the other hand, the heights his anxiety can reach are oftentimes slightly trying for Alasdair's own nerves.  
  
"I'm going to be a couple of miles down the road, not at the other side of the world. I'm sure the prince will give me time off at some point so I can come and show you I'm still alive, and, even if he doesn't, you can ask Luise, because she ordered me to send her progress reports every day when I checked in at the guardhouse. Like you said, I'm probably just going to be following him around – and bored out of my mind, most likely – watching him do whatever it is he fills his days with. I'll be fine, Dyl."  
  
Although Dylan contemplates his ragged fingernails for a while, which suggests he isn't especially reassured, he does eventually laugh and say, "And near sixty silvers richer. What are you planning to spend it on?"  
  
It's hardly an enthusiastic endorsement for his plans, but it _is_ acceptance, and Alasdair smiles at his brother gratefully for giving it. His captain wouldn't have been able to sway him from the course of action he'd decided on, even if she had protested it, but if Dylan really had found the idea impossible to stomach, Alasdair's not entirely sure he could have been as resolute as he needs to be.  
  
"I'm going too buy some new boots for Mikey. So long as he doesn't perish from his cold as he keeps telling me he will, anyway. And then I thought you could use the rest to get yourself a new coat."  
  
Dylan looks horrified. "I couldn't take that much, Aly. You need new trousers far more than I need a new coat. Most of them are no better than rags."  
  
"I have one good pair. You don't have one good coat. Yours is full of holes."  
  
"At least people can't see my arse through them," Dylan says, a mite snippily, as he gets up from the table and heads towards the kettle and its promise of much-needed fortification for the inevitable conversation ahead. "Which is more than I can say for those trousers you insist you can't possibly throw out."  
  
Alasdair's smile grows even broader, because he can already tell exactly how this argument will go.  
  
It'll last them all the way through dinner and beyond, and will doubtless culminate in them resolving to buy neither coat nor trousers, but that the remaining money should be added to the small stash that Alasdair keeps in a tin beneath his bed. A tin which they'll raid come Yuletide so they can gift each other with trousers and coat respectively, and both feel righteously gratified that they managed to avoid indulging themselves.  
  
It's comforting, he thinks, to have someone he knows so well, and who knows him just as well in return. He's going to miss his brother, even if they are only going to be separated for a fortnight.

 

 

* * *

 

  
  
The prince, Alasdair is informed at the front door of the palace, is at work in his study.  
  
Alasdair nods, and waits, and nods some more, until the servant who had ushered him inside seemingly grows tired of watching his head bob, and informs him in a slightly exasperated tone, "He said that you already know your way and wouldn't need to be escorted there, sir."  
  
It's yet another unexpected gesture of trust, to be allowed to wander unaccompanied around a palace filled to the brim with all manner of objects of great value and small enough size that they could easily be slipped into a waiting pocket, and one that Alasdair honours by not straying too far off the beaten track as he makes his way up to the prince's bedchambers, even though he still hasn't formed as clear a picture of the palace's geography as he'd like.  
  
When he raps on the chambers' outer door, he is greeted by the prince's voice, rather than the man himself,  urging him to, "Please, come in."  
  
His lack of attention gifts Alasdair with an equal opportunity to explore the chambers more thoroughly that he'd been given the chance to earlier that day, but that feels like far too much of a liberty compared to poking his nose down an empty corridor or two, so he squelches his curiosity and lets himself into the prince's study, instead.  
  
The prince is sitting at his desk, pen in hand, and apparently so engrossed in his writing that he can't even spare the time to look up from it to offer Alasdair any sort of welcome.  
  
"My apologies, Corporal," he says when he pauses to dip his pen in the inkwell set close to his right hand, "I had meant to finish this letter long before you arrived."  
  
"That's all right, sir," Alasdair says. "I'm a bit early, as it is. I've no problem with waiting."  
  
Deciding on exactly where he should be waiting, though, _does_ prove to be a problem.  
  
Given their new situation, Alasdair feels as though he should probably station himself at the prince's back or else close to his side, but he doesn't want the prince to think that he's trying to peek over his shoulder (nor does he want to be tempted into doing so). Conversely, seating himself on the short leather sofa at the other end of the room seems not only unprofessional, it would leave him at a distinct disadvantage if someone were to burst in through the study door with the intention of abducting the prince and spiriting him off to some previously spurned revelry.  
  
He settles for the compromise of standing slightly to one side of the desk but several paces behind: far enough away that he can't resolve the prince's looping handwriting into anything meaningful, but still close at hand in case he is needed to tackle any intruders.  
  
The prince scribbles away at his letter for a minute or so longer, but then lays his pen aside with a low groan and starts scrubbing at his eyes with the heels of both hands. "I hadn't anticipated this would be so difficult," he says. "But then I've never had much occasion to give thanks to my father before, and it turns out the words don't come as easily as they should."  
  
"Why do you need to thank him?" Alasdair asks, as he can't think of a single thing that he'd heard in the king's letter that could possibly inspire any gratitude in anyone.  
  
The prince chuckles wryly. "For his compliment, of course. He called my governing 'tolerable', Corporal. Some of the highest praise he's ever offered me, and for work I received absolutely no training in, at that."  
  
Alasdair's never given any thought to what the prince might have done with himself if he hadn't had the governorship thrust upon him, but guesses that it stands to reason that he, and his family, had some other purpose in mind for him before the events in Germania caused his life to swerve onto an entirely different track.    
  
"What were you trained for, sir?"  
  
"Oh, well, I wasn't really trained for anything, I suppose," the prince says, sounding surprised to have been asked the question. "No-one ever imagined that I'd inherit my father's throne, and Maman's estate will go to Madeline as it's passed down through the female line. All that was expected of me was that I'd marry well some day, and then sire as many children as required in due course. I didn't..."  
  
As he turns in his chair to face Alasdair, the prince's words fade away into a silent gawping that makes Alasdair feel at first uncomfortably laid bare, and then, as it persists long beyond that initial burst of acute shame, increasingly annoyed.  
  
"What?" he snaps.  
  
"It's..." The prince's gaze narrows, drifts upwards, and then fixes itself on Alasdair's chest. He pats his own and asks, "What _are_ you wearing, Corporal?"  
  
Alasdair looks down, puzzled, but sees nothing sufficiently unusual to warrant the naked incredulity in the prince's voice. Just his coat – which is a trifle shabby, but he's worn clothes in a worse condition in front of the prince before and he's never seen fit to remark upon them – and, "A jumper, sir. Don't you have them in Gallia?"  
  
The prince moves his head, but in such a vague way that Alasdair can't tell if he's meaning to nod or shake it. "I've just never seen one with such... an unusual pattern before. Where _did_ you get it?"  
  
"My wee cousin made it for me," Alasdair says. Prompted by the prince's interest, he examines the jumper more closely than he ever has done before. Personally, he can't actually discern any particular pattern to its random assortment of colours, nor to the collection of lumps and bumps scattered across it, which he'd taken for mistakes made in the knitting rather than a design of any sort. "My aunt and uncle own a sheep farm a couple of miles from here, and they give him yarn enough that he always knits me and my brothers a little something for our birthdays and so on. I have gloves and a scarf to match, too."  
  
After a fashion, anyway. Really, the only thing that brings the three together as an ensemble is the fact that they're all made out of wool.  
  
"That's... very kind of him," the prince says, his eyelids fluttering closed. "And I'm sure they all have... great sentimental value, but do you think you could perhaps do without them for tonight? They don't exactly match the _aesthetic_ I'm going to be aiming for with my personal guard."  
  
"An aesthetic's not going to keep me from catching my death of cold, is it?" Alasdair says, wondering why in the many hells the man had asked him to bring his own warm clothes if he was so fussy about their appearance. "And besides, what does it matter what I look like if I'm just sitting outside in the dark, staring at a tree?"  
  
"You're not going there straight away, Corporal. You can bring them with you, if you like, but I'm supposed to paying a visit to Lord Mason's estate tonight, so you have to be dressed accordingly."  
  
Alasdair's heart sinks. He hadn't even entertained possibility that he might have to start the actual guarding part of their arrangement quite yet, and he feels woefully unprepared for it now. He doesn't suppose that his dealings with the prince have in any way qualified him for interacting with the rest of the nobility, who are, in his experience, generally a lot less willing to forgive slips of the tongue and forgotten courtesies.  
  
"Who's Lord Mason, sir?" he asks gloomily.  
  
"To me? A convenient excuse for late night excursions," the prince says, smiling. "To the rest of my family, well, they suspect that he's been my lover for the past two months at least. A flattering assumption for him, I'm sure, so I'm confident he wouldn't gainsay such rumours were they ever to reach his ears."  
  
"So, you'll visit this Lord Mason for the night whilst I go on to the tree?"  
  
"No, we're going to..." The prince opens his eyes a crack, and regards Alasdair speculatively. "Can you ride, Corporal?"  
  
"Naw, closest I've ever got to it is when my aunt plonked me on a donkey when I was a wean, and even then I managed to fall off as soon it started walking. I've never felt the need to try again."  
  
The prince inclines his head in acknowledgement, and after a moment's thought – during which time, Alasdair imagines, he makes some hurried adjustments to his plans – he says, "I would usually ride to Lord Mason's, but I think, as it's so clear out, I wouldn't arouse too many suspicions if I decided I would prefer to walk there, instead.    
  
"But, ultimately, I won't be doing anything other than accompanying you, Corporal. It's going to be a long night, and I wouldn't want you to face it alone."

 

 


	31. Chapter 31

When they finally slog to the top of the steep, rocky slope, the prince stops, paces a circle with his lamp held out at arm's length in front of him, and then says, "I think this will be perfect."  
  
Alasdair only just manages to suppress the urge to throw himself at the prince's feet in gratitude.  
  
He's always thought himself to be a moderately fit and healthy man, because he must walk at least ten miles near every day on his patrols and he never tires from them. But, then again, he patrols on largely level, cobbled streets, and doesn't have to fight his way through brambles and mud, ford streams, or match the honestly quite gruelling pace of a man wearing boots with far better grips than his own.  
  
They can't have travelled more than three miles, but he's winded, his legs are aching, and his heart is thumping so hard that he thinks the prince must be able to count every one of its rapid beats, even though he's standing several feet away.  
  
If he can, it inspires absolutely no pity in him, because he doesn't give Alasdair time enough to catch his breath before practically demanding that he unpack the bag they brought with them and lay out one of the blankets it carries in front of a nearby stone wall.  
  
"You could put your jumper on again now, as well," he adds, sounding very pleased with himself and his munificence .  
  
Alasdair places the blanket as directed, but leaves jumper, scarf and gloves exactly where they are. He's clammy with sweat from the crown of his head down to the soles of his feet, and the mere thought of piling on yet more layers of clothing makes his skin crawl in horror.  
  
The prince wanders over to inspect his preparations, and though he professes to be satisfied with them, he doesn't seem very keen to seat himself.  
  
"Perhaps we should have brought those cushions, after all," Alasdair says commiseratingly, because the blanket isn't thick enough to have smoothed out the lumps and bumps of the uneven ground beneath it, and the prospect of having them jab against his tailbone for hours on end is no more appealing for him than it appears to be for the prince.  
  
"Lovino was suspicious enough when he spotted our bag," the prince says. "He would have been beside himself if we were toting cushions too. We'll just have to make do, Corporal."  
  
With that, he hands Alasdair the lamp and then drops to sit cross-legged, his back propped against the wall. He leans a little to the left and then a little to the right, raises his shoulders and then lowers them, scowling all the while. "I doubt I'm ever going to get comfortable," he says irritably. "It's astounding how quickly one gets unused to such things. When I was in the army, I could have dropped off to sleep in a place like this without a breath of trouble, but not even two years on, I find myself wishing that we could have somehow contrived to bring a mattress with us, never mind cushions, just to sit here for a few hours."  
  
"I thought Legates always got their own personal tent," Alasdair says, hunkering down to mirror the prince's position at the opposite side of the blanket.  
  
"They do, and, even, on occasion, ones with maps." The prince chuckles softly. "When you're on the march, though, there's often neither the time nor the opportunity to set up camp, so you simply have to lay your bedroll down in the flattest place you can find and make do."  
  
His voice has a strangely wistful quality to it that Alasdair would never have expected to hear, given the circumstances of the prince's military service, and it spurs him to ask, "Do you miss it, sir?"  
  
"Well, not that particular aspect, as I'm very fond of my home comforts, but there are _people_ I miss, and I enjoyed having a clear order to my days far more than I ever thought I would. However, I am..." The prince inhales sharply through his nose, holds the breath for a time, and then releases it, long and slow. "I must admit that, in some ways, I'm quite glad things worked out the way they did. I spent so much of my time terrified for my life that I'm not certain that my nerves could have held out for another year if it was anything like that first." His head droops slightly. "You can understand now why I'm not often called brave."  
  
"My sister says that she's damn near shitting herself at the start of every battle, and she'd be the last person I'd ever call a coward," Alasdair says. "Being terrified when you're facing people determined to kill you is a pretty natural reaction, I reckon; it's what you do afterwards that decides whether you're brave or not. Were those stories they used to publish about you in the periodicals true?"  
  
"That very much depends on which ones you're referring to."  
  
"Did you ride at the head of your Legion whenever they engaged the enemy?" The prince shakes his head. "Defend one of your injured Centurions against ten Germanics hells-bent on finishing off, armed with nothing more than a tree branch?" And again, with more vigour. "Walk the field after every battle so you could personally count the fallen?"  
  
The prince's back stiffens, and he gives a tight little nod. "My father insisted on it. He told me that I owed it to them, because, as their commander, their lives had been in my hands and so each one of their deaths was my sole responsibility. I think he hoped it would make me strive to do better, but it almost drove me to despair."  
  
Alasdair can't imagine it having any other effect, because, frankly, it sounds like complete bollocks. War is chaotic, and a commander would have to be fucking prescient as well as a tactical genius to bring all of their soldiers through it unscathed.  
  
The King of Gallia might well be regarded as one of the finest generals the Empire has ever seen, but even he has never, to Alasdair's knowledge, fought a battle in which there was not a single casualty amongst his troops.  
  
It seems more like an act of deliberate cruelty than a teaching aid, but from what the prince has told him about the man, he's inclined to believe that the former had been his intention, in any case.  
  
"Sorry to say so, sir, but your father sounds like a complete bastard."  
  
The prince laughs dryly. "Don't be sorry, Corporal," he says. "I've thought far worse of him, in my time. I give him the deference he's due as my king, of course, but I don't respect him as a father, or as a man."  
  
"Weren't you ever tempted to just tell him to fuck off ?" Alasdair asks. He struggles to obey Sergeant Lewis' commands nine times out of ten, and the man's just an arse with an inflated sense of his own importance, and not someone who sounds as though they could well be a true sadist. "I know I would have been."  
  
"All the time," the prince admits. "But he's a powerful man, with many corrective tools at his disposal, and I always had the threat of his disowning me hanging over my head if they proved themselves ineffective. Madeline and Alfred both came of age during my service in Germania, and I knew that he would turn his sights to them if he ever decided to wash his hands of me entirely. So, I endured."  
  
That's an impulse Alasdair is far more familiar with, as he'd like to think he'd endure for his own siblings' sake if he were ever put in the same position. "See, you are brave," he says. "I suspect there are many who wouldn't be able to do that, even if they might wish they could."  
   
The prince stares down at his hands, folded together primly in his lap, and makes no reply for several moments.  
  
"What is it about you that makes me rattle on like this, Corporal?" he says eventually, sounding equal parts annoyed and bewildered. "It must seem as though I think of little else but my father, and pitying myself for his treatment of me. Truthfully, it used to be rare that I would care to remember him at all, and I would  speak of him even less. But then, with you, I find that I..."  He laughs again, but this time he sounds slightly embarrassed. "Ah, enough of this. Even I'm getting tired of listening to me. We should talk about other things."  
  
"Or we should perhaps not talk at all, sir," Alasdair says, only belatedly remembering with the prince's words that they're not sitting in a field in the middle of the night simply because they'd fancied a change in scenery for one of their conversations. "I imagine we might scare the Seeker off if they do happen to pop by and overhear us babbling away up here."  
  
The prince's face darkens considerably with a blush. "Yes," he says, quickly dowsing the lamp's flame, "you're right, of course."  
  
Thankfully, the skies are still clear enough that when Alasdair's eyes have adjusted to the sudden change in light, he can see the tree the prince had pointed out at the foot of the hill quite distinctly: an inky black smudge that stands stark against the washed-out grey landscape that surrounds it.  
  
"I'll take first watch," the prince suggests in what Alasdair imagines to be an act of contrition. "Why don't you see if you can manage to take a nap for an hour or so."  


 

* * *

  
  
  
Although the only words that have passed between Alasdair and the prince for the past two hours were a whispered request to hand over the binoculars once it became time for Alasdair's watch to begin, it would come as no surprise if the Seeker had been startled into hiding by the din they're making, regardless.  
  
The prince has drawn his knees to his chest, and tucked their second blanket up around his chin, but he still can't seem to stop shivering. The persistent rustle of his clothing sounds as loud as a gale wind whipping through a tree's branches in the otherwise silent night; the click, click, click of his chattering teeth as sharp as gunshots.  
  
"You can have my gloves if you like, sir," whispers Alasdair, who had noted that the prince's own gloves, while clearly well-made, are roughly the same thickness as paper. "They're still in the bag."  
  
"I wouldn't want to deprive you," the prince says, although, to Alasdair's ears, it sounds more akin to: 'My very flesh would peel itself away from my bones in revulsion if I ever deigned to place such _things_ on my hands'.  
  
"Take them," Alasdair insists, forcing his voice to stay hushed and mild, despite the prince's inopportune display of prissiness testing his patience. "I don't really feel the cold much."  
  
"Even so, surely you'd be all the more comfortable wearing them?"  
  
"I know you think they're ugly, but—"  
  
"I never said anything of the sort," the prince says, his evident offence at the accusation causing his words to ring out more stridently than he'd likely intended.  
  
"You didn't need to, sir." His reaction upon being shown them had been along the same lines as when viewing the jumper, only yet more pronounced, and it had led Alasdair to the realisation that, in retrospect, he'd obviously been horrified by that, too. "Look, it's so dark you won't even be able to see them yourself, and I promise I won't breathe a word of it to anyone. You can pretend it never happened come morning. Please, take them."  
  
It's still too great a risk for him to take, apparently, because the prince says, "I can't, Corporal," as firmly as his shiver-hitched voice will allow. "Whatever you say now, you might find yourself wanting them at some point."  


 

* * *

  
  
  
Ten minutes later, the prince retrieves not only Alasdair's gloves but also his scarf from the bag, and dons both without even a second's hesitation.

 

 

* * *

  
  
  
Ten minutes after that, the prince's shaking hasn't subsided, and it's since been joined by a loud, repeated sniffing and the occasional cough which betrays a nose and throat gone almost numb with cold.  
  
Alasdair lays the binoculars down again with a sigh. "You _can_ move closer to me, sir," he says. "I've been told I throw out heat like a furnace, so it should help you warm back up quickly enough."  
  
All of the prince's extraneous motion stops in an instant. Alasdair can see nothing of the man beyond a vague silhouette, but he can nevertheless recognise that his spine has gone rigid by the way that shadow elongates and flattens out.  
  
"I would have thought... I assumed you wouldn't be comfortable with that."  
  
"Most do, I suppose, after I tell them how things are with me," Alasdair says, shrugging. "But I'm not averse to being touched. Just so long as it's all platonic, anyhow."  
  
That does not appear to serve as sufficient reassurance to the prince, as he makes no move to close the gap between the two of them. His breathing speeds up and grows yet harsher, and for a while, it's the only thing Alasdair can hear.  
  
"Corporal," he spits out finally, "I haven't been entirely truthful with you."  
  
Alasdair would be much more shocked to discover that wasn't the case. "In what way?" he asks.  
  
The prince coughs again, more roughly than before, but even that doesn't dislodge his words properly, and they come out stiff and halting. "If, um, if you weren't who you are, I would definitely be tempted to, um, pursue you romantically."  
  
"If I wasn't who I am?" Alasdair says, grinning; amused by the delicate ambiguity of the phrasing, which, he suspects, was carefully chosen with his sensitivities in mind. "You mean if I was a lord rather than a guard, and interested in romance, besides? I had already guessed as much, sir."  
  
"You had?"  
  
"I might be slow about such things, but I'm not completely stupid, and you're hardly subtle about the amount of staring you do."  
  
"My apologies, Corporal; I'm afraid I seldom realise when I do start staring," the prince says, sounding thoroughly abashed. "I'm not surprised that it happens more regularly than I'm aware of, though. You are often a very arresting sight."  
  
It's an observation Alasdair would prefer not to be expounded upon, for his own embarrassment's sake, so he quickly remarks, "It's all moot, anyway, because I _am_ me. And, more than that, you're _you_ , and, well, you were very insistent that you're not the type to run after commoners. I trust that you're not going to try any pursuing, sir."  
  
It's not much to give in exchange for being entrusted with the man's most dangerous secrets and the run of his palace, but as Alasdair is still not fully convinced that it's the truth of the matter, it feels like a pretty big leap of faith, all the same.  
  
The prince certainly sounds as though he believes a great honour has been bestowed upon him. "Thank you, Corporal," he says, very gravely.  
  
He shuffles over to Alasdair's side with a great deal of caution, as though expecting his offer to be revoked at any instant, and halts as soon as their shoulders brush together.  
  
It's the only point of contact along the entire length of their bodies, and Alasdair can scarcely feel it anyhow through the thick fabric of his own coat. The prince is so quiet, too, that he could almost persuade himself that the man wasn't there, save for the fact that he can smell him.  
  
Except it isn't the prince's scent – whatever that may be; the man wears so many different fragrances, day by day, that there's none in particular that Alasdair associates with him – but Alasdair's own, rising up from his scarf where it's wrapped tight around the prince's neck.  
  
It's an odd thought, and Alasdair's unsure what to make of it, so he sets it to one side and picks up the binoculars again instead.

 

 


	32. Chapter 32

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just easing myself back into this fic after my slight hiatus from it, so this is a little shorter than the updates to it have been of late. More to come soon, though.

Despite having purportedly lost the ability, the prince nods off almost immediately after his watch ends. Alasdair worries that his light snores are merely a ruse designed to excuse future encroachments into his personal space, but as time wears on and the prince doesn't lean against him more heavily or edge any closer, that seems increasingly unlikely.  
  
He pushes the suspicion to the back of his mind, then casts around for something else to occupy it.  
  
First, he mentally counts up to a thousand and then down to one, in the trade tongue and then Gallian. He tries to do the same in Old Brittonic, but as Da never got the chance to properly teach them how to construct numbers beyond a hundred, and it's the most unintuitive language Alasdair's ever encountered, the attempt eventually grinds to a frustrated halt.  
  
Afterwards, he lists the Northern Brittonic kings and queens from Llewellyn the first to Llewellyn the last, then the monarchs of Hispania, Lusitania, and Gallia. He lists herbs and their properties, rocks and their component parts, animal and plant phyla, and all the constellations from east to west.  
  
It's not exactly an _interesting_ way of passing the time, but it's definitely more absorbing than staring blankly at a tree, and it keeps his thoughts ticking over at a sufficient clip that he can stave off sleep for a little while longer.  
  
When pale golden light starts to spill over the horizon, he sets the binoculars aside for what he hopes is the last time, rubs at his gritty eyes with his knuckles, and then gingerly nudges the prince with his elbow.  
  
The snoring continues unabated.  
  
Alasdair nudges a little harder, hisses 'Sir', says 'Sir', and finally bellows 'Sir' down the man's earhole.  
  
The prince's nose twitches, and he waves a languid hand towards Alasdair whilst muttering, " _Une minute_."  
  
Alasdair gives him at least cinq minutes as he runs through his normal limbering routine of stretches and then straightens his clothes, but still the prince doesn't rouse himself to a brisk shaking of his shoulder afterwards. Even splashing his face with a little of the water from their canteen only causes him to curl his body into an even tighter ball and pull the blanket up over his head.  
  
Running short on ideas of how to proceed, Alasdair takes a moment to collect his thoughts and then ventures, "I'm going to take a look round the tree. If you're not up and about by the time I've finished, I guess I'll have to carry you back to the palace. And Gabs wasn't exaggerating; it'd be a bumpy ride.  
  
"Or I might just leave you here. Of course, then you'll have to explain to M. Jansen and your family why you're keeping me as a guard even though I managed to misplace you on my first night on the job, but, well, I'm sure you'll think of something, sir."  
  
This last ditch warning is answered only by a vague grumbling noise that might actually be nothing more than a particularly forceful snore. Alasdair abruptly tires of the whole enterprise, and thus doesn't wait for a more coherent reply before setting off down to the tree.  
  
As he nears it, the ground flattens out but becomes even rougher underfoot; the earth churned by countless overlapping hoof- and footprints that would mark it out, Alasdair suspects, as the focus of the prince's morning rides to anyone that might already have become suspicious of them.  
  
There are so many, in fact, that Alasdair can neither separate one from another nor discern if any in particular is more recent than the rest. If the Seeker had managed to sneak past them in the darkness, their passage would be effectively disguised, in any case.  
  
The tree itself holds no answers, either. It's a stunted wee thing which appears to have been struck by lightning at some point in its history judging by the cracked and blackened bark on its westward side.  
  
The cracks coalesce to form a deep hole at Alasdair's shoulder height, almost as wide around as his head and with edges so regular that they almost look as if they've been sanded smooth. Apart from a thin layer of dust and a couple of conkers that were likely secreted there by an enterprising squirrel, it's completely empty. Yet another dead end.  
  
Alasdair turns his back on the tree in disgust and then stomps back up the hill, fully expecting to meet with yet more disappointment when he reaches its summit.  
  
The prince has stirred himself sufficiently to sit upright and thus confound Alasdair's low expectations, however, but as he still has the blanket wrapped tight around his body, Alasdair's scarf hitched up over his nose, and his eyes are open only by the very narrowest of margins, it's not change enough that he can claim himself to be shocked by it.  
  
"I thought you intended to abandon me," the prince says as Alasdair draws near, his voice whetted sharp with petulance.  
  
"I _threatened_ to abandon you," Alasdair says with a broad, feigned smile, wilfully ignoring his tone, "which isn't the same thing at all."  
  
The prince yanks the scarf down hard from his face, revealing lips contorted into an angry snarl that seems to forewarn of complaints about his impudence to come. But, although the man's nostrils flare, and his breathing quickens, all that emerges when he finally opens his mouth is a rough, pained-sounding groan.  
  
He arches his back afterwards, to the accompaniment of a series of dull pops and crackles as his joints resettle, and then says, "I feel like... Well, like someone who has slept extremely poorly in a field. No doubt I look much the same, too."  
  
His subsequent smile appears more self-deprecating than self-pitying, and therefore Alasdair feels no compunction against voicing his agreement.  
  
This is the third morning that he's seen the prince before he's performed whatever miracles he usually works to transform himself into his daytime state of gleaming perfection, and the third morning he has resembled a person who's never been introduced to the concept of either a brush or a mirror. His hair is a frowzy tangle again, his skin is sallow, and the bags beneath his eyes are almost as capacious as the duffel they'd toted their supplies in.  
  
Alasdair can't say that it's an appearance that suits him any better than the other, but somehow he prefers it, all the same. Perhaps because it humanises him more than deliberate attempts at finding common ground between the two extremes of their positions might, because there can be no suspicion of any subterfuge. Despite his clear advantages in fortune and taste, underneath them is a man who wakes in exactly the same sort of dishevelled condition as Alasdair does himself.  
  
"Ah, if I don't watch myself carefully, your flattery will go to my head one of these days, Corporal,"  the prince says, bending stiffly at his waist in a mockery of a courtly bow.  
  
He slides the blanket from his shoulders and then pushes himself up to his feet, all in one remarkably fluid movement. In the light of day, and laid in contrast to his smart navy overcoat and well-shined boots, Alasdair's scarf and gloves seem all the more ridiculously incongruous on him. The gloves especially, which are far too large for him; their fingertips dangling limply several inches below the prince's own.  
  
Alasdair inclines his head towards them. "I'm guessing you're finished with those now," he says. "Shall I chuck them in the bag with everything else?"  
  
"No," the prince says quickly, his hands curling in on themselves in a strangely protective-looking gesture. "No, I'd like to keep them for the time being, if you don't mind. At least until I've thawed out a little."  
  
"You can wear them for as long as you like, sir." Alasdair shrugs. "I've no need of them myself. My walk to the tree warmed me up well enough."  
  
"Did you find anything interesting there?" the prince asks.  
  
"Naw, but then I wasn't expecting to, either. I didn't see any sign of your Seeker during my last watch, or anyone else."  
  
"Well, though I had wished otherwise, I can't say it's much of a surprise," the prince says with a sigh. "The Seeker's last three letters arriving in such quick succession was an aberration from their usual pattern. The four previous to that came at roughly fortnightly intervals. They might not visit here again for quite some time."  
  
"Is that why you wanted me to work for you for two weeks, sir?" Alasdair asks, a horrified chill washing over him. "So we could sit out here every night for the duration, waiting for the Seeker to make a reappearance?"  
  
The prince's aghast expression answers that question even before he puts words to his reply. "Of course not, Corporal. As you pointed out yourself, it's doubtful this is the weak point in the letters' chain.  It was a long shot, and one I don't think our time would be served well by repeating.  
  
"If there was a way of knowing if someone had seen the Horton letter before I retrieved it myself,  then that might be of use to us, but it's too late for that now."  
  
"Maybe not, sir," says Alasdair, who had spared a moment to ponder this exact scenario in-between his endless internal recitations of lists. "We could always mock up a second letter, leave it in the tree, and you can check whether it's been taken or not when you ride out here of a morning."  
  
The prince looks intrigued by the idea for less than a fraction of an instant before he frowns and says, "Whilst that might prove that the drop point has been compromised, it won't help us discover who might have done so, will it?"  
  
"Maybe, maybe not," Alasdair says. "If we put the address as somewhere within easy distance of the apothecary, I can tell Dyl and Mikey to keep an eye on it and let me know if any suspicious characters start sniffing about."  
  
The prince's frown deepens. "I'm not sure I like that idea, Corporal," he says. "I hope you understand that I don't intend this as a slight against your brothers, but I really do think it would be safer if you didn't share our work with them."  
  
Alasdair had foreseen exactly that response, and prepared his reply accordingly. "You trust me, don't you?" he asks.  
  
"Of course," the prince says without hesitation.  
  
"And I trust my brothers even more so. I've no intention of letting them know the specifics, just that it'll help my investigation if they do this for me, and if I ask them not to tell a soul about it, they won't. I promise you, sir."  
  
The prince contemplates this for a moment, and then nods curtly. "There's a pen and paper in the bag," he says, "and the Seeker's handwriting would be easy enough to forge, I think. You can write and inform your brothers of your plan as soon as we return to the palace."

 

 


	33. Chapter 33

On their return to the palace, however, Alasdair scarcely has chance to divest himself of his jumper, never mind put pen to paper, before M. Jansen comes knocking at the outer door to the prince's chambers, alerting him to the arrival of the morning's post.  
  
The prince ' _une minute_ 's him, too, which stalls the secretary for just long enough that Alasdair can wash his face and hands, and brush the worst of the mud from his trousers.  
  
The prince had used his stolen time much more effectively, it seems, for when he emerges from his bedroom, he is not only clad in an entirely fresh outfit of pale trousers, waistcoat and shirt, but has worked some kind of cosmetic miracle which has smoothed out his blotchy complexion and left his hair straight and shining once more.  
  
He gives a couple of very pointed sniffs when Alasdair moves up beside him, and then produces a lacy handkerchief from one sleeve to press against his nose. "You smell like you spent the night in a field, Corporal," he says with a haughty air.  
  
His eyes are warm and bright with amusement, which blunts the insult's sting, and Alasdair supposes he deserves it in retaliation for his own hillside remark upon the prince's appearance, anyway.  
  
"I shall endeavour to stand downwind, sir," he says, and then steps forward to open the door onto the hallway for the prince.  
  
Outside, M. Jansen is standing to attention only a few feet away, and he greets the prince coolly and efficiently, ignores Alasdair's existence yet again, then sets off at a quickstep march towards his office.  
  
The prince keeps pace with him with ostensible ease, but Alasdair drops further and further behind the two of them, because he doesn't even have the dubious benefit of whatever meagre reserves of stamina a couple of hours of unsettled napping might have given him.  
  
The muscles in his legs are still sore from their three mile hike back to the palace, and, proper personal guarding be damned, when he eventually does straggle into M. Jansen's office, he would have gladly accepted the use of a chair as the prince had suggested yesterday. The offer is not repeated, though, and he has to settle for a surreptitious leaning of his weight against a nearby bookcase as the secretary takes up his pile of correspondence.  
  
His perception might be distorted by exhaustion, but Alasdair could swear that the reading takes much longer than the other one had. There certainly seem to be twice as many begging invitations as before, and he has to wonder how the hells the good denizens of East- and Highgate ever get anything productive done with their lives, given that they would appear to spend the vast majority of them either attending or hosting parties and balls.  
  
The prince declines all but two of them: the first of which purports to be a charitable occasion to raise funds for the 'poor orphans of Old Town', and the second is thrown by Lord Mason, which he loudly claims will be the 'event of the season' and Alasdair silently presumes is a necessary engagement in order to maintain the fiction of their close relationship.  
  
Once all the post has been attended to, and the prince's subsequent turn about the gardens completed, Alasdair also presumes the prince will retire to his chambers as he had the previous day, and thus they'll both be able to catch up on some much needed sleep.  
  
Unfortunately, it transpires that the previous day must have been a particularly light one on the prince's calendar, because from the gardens they repair instead to the rose drawing room to meet with one of the aldermen from the Devan town council, who has a whole host of lengthy and tedious complaints – largely centred around the deplorable state of the Old Town sewage system – to share with the prince, and thence to a poky little room below stairs to discuss linen and lamp oil and coal supplies with the butler.  
  
Alasdair's head is pounding with the sort of headache that's more unbearable pressure than pain and dims his vision around its edges in black waves, and it distracts him so thoroughly from his body's other demands that it comes as an honest surprise when his stomach starts growling in protest at its continued state of emptiness.  
  
Shamefully, its vociferous enough that both the prince and the butler take note of it. The butler shoots him a chastising glare – likely meant to remind him that, as a servant, he should really try harder to prevent his involuntary digestive functions from intruding into the realm of his betters – but the prince looks at him with naked concern in his eyes.  
  
"Forgive me, Corporal," he says in an undertone, "I'd forgotten that you haven't yet had chance to eat. Go through into the kitchen" – he waves a hand towards a door at the back of the room – "and tell one of the cooks that I sent you for your breakfast. I'm sure they'll be able to rustle up something suitable in moments."  
  
Alasdair bows to him gratefully, and to the butler – whose glare has become even more censorious – rather less so, and then happily takes his leave of them.  
  
The very instant he pokes his nose inside the kitchen a stoop-backed and grey-haired old cook with a face like a wizened apple and a smile like sunshine bustles over to him and folds one of her thin arms around his.  
  
"We've been expecting you," she says as she tugs him towards the long, rough-hewn table set in the middle of the room. "Though rather earlier than this, I must admit. Near eleven o'clock and you've not been fed?" She sucks in air through her clenched teeth. "It's a disgrace! You must be starving, poor thing."  
  
She urges him to sit down on one of the low stools that line one side of the table, gruffly commands a passing scullery boy to fix 'a plate of meat and bread for the poor guard', and then starts filleting some enormous, flat and bug-eyed fish right next to him, all the while keeping up a constant grumbling tirade against the thoughtlessness of the nobility.  
  
Perhaps Alasdair had been wrong, after all, and there really is an uprising brewing below stairs that the prince should be concerning himself with.  
  
The scullery boy swiftly returns with a wooden plate piled high with thick slices of beef and gammon, and pieces of bread smothered with rich yellow butter. Alasdair thanks him for it, but the boy just grunts at him sullenly, doubtless resentful of his presence there, adding work to what is obviously an already busy part of the day.  
  
The kitchen is teeming with busy life; scullery boys and girls and cooks rushing to clear away the debris of the royals' breakfast and begin the preparations for their lunch. It seems to be a well-orchestrated dance, and they twist and turn and swerve around each other as they move from sink to table to huge, fire-belching stoves, their paths often crossing but somehow never meeting even though they all look preoccupied with their own concerns instead of one another.  
  
Even though the food that had been thrust in front of him both looks and smells delicious, it turns to little better than sawdust in Alasdair's dry mouth. He's loath to distract anyone from their work for long enough to inquire where he might find a glass, however, never mind ask if they could fetch a drink for him.  
  
He forces down some bread and the most tender portions of the meat before his both his will and energy abruptly run out. He slides the plate away, crosses his arms on the tabletop, and then pillows his head against them.  
  
He had only meant to rest his eyes for a while, but the kitchen's soporific warmth proves impossible to resist, quickly lulling him into a light doze.  
  
He's roused an indeterminable span of time later by the soft brush of fingers against the back of his neck, and the prince's voice, which is even softer yet, by his ear. "Our morning's tasks are done at last," he says. "I think our beds are long overdue, don't you?"

 

 

* * *

 

  
  
Alasdair had been a little alarmed by the bed in his new quarters when he finally did have chance to sink down onto it. The mattress was so soft and yielding that it almost felt as though it was trying to devour him whole, and he'd been concerned that he'd never dare sleep there for fear of being smothered.  
  
He had, however, passed out mid-worry, and slept so deeply and soundly that when the prince taps politely at his closed door to invite him to have his dinner in the sitting room, he awakes feeling more refreshed than he usually would even in his own home.  
  
As the prince had insinuated earlier, his smart shirt and trousers are both a little on the ripe side, so Alasdair has no choice but to dress in the spares that he'd brought back from his last visit to the apothecary. The prince will probably have a good moan and groan about how threadbare they are, but ultimately he'll just have to like it or lump it, because they're all Alasdair has.  
  
He had expected the prince would eat his evening meal with his family, but instead, a small, round table has been laid with two place simple place settings in the sitting room: a spoon and fork flanking plain white bowls, with a glass half-full of red wine beside each.  
  
The prince is already seated there, and he gestures for Alasdair to take the chair opposite his own. "You must have made a excellent impression on the head cook," he says, "because she insisted on preparing a dish for us in your honour. She tells me it's a Devan speciality."  
  
The bowls are filled with a thick brown broth, crowded with chunks of potato, carrot, and beef, all bumping up against plump white dumplings. "I wouldn't call it a speciality," Alasdair says as he sits down. "We do eat a lot of it, though. My ma always said that even the finest food in Roma surely couldn't compete with a good beef stew."  
  
And it's a very good stew indeed; so rich and piquant that Alasdair has shovelled a good half of it down his throat before he thinks to concern himself about his table manners and that he might look like a complete pig to the prince.  
  
That thought, once acknowledged, is difficult to shake loose, and eventually becomes sufficiently overwhelming that he has to put down his spoon and glance warily across the table, to gauge how contemptuous the prince looks and thus how embarrassed he should be.  
  
The prince isn't sneering, but he isn't eating, either. His eyes are fixed unwaveringly on Alasdair, a faint smile curving his lips.  
  
"Sir," Alasdair says slowly, "I'm guessing this is one of those occasions you mentioned where you don't realise you're staring."  
  
The prince blinks at him rapidly, and then turns his head aside. "I'm sorry, Corporal," he says. "My mind was elsewhere."  
  
Alasdair's stomach churns uneasily. "Where exactly?"  
  
"Oh, nowhere sinister," the prince says, and then immediately undoes his attempt at reassurance by adding, "Well, _I_ don't think it's sinister. You might believe otherwise. We'll see which of us is right as soon as we've finished eating."  
  
With that, he tucks into his previously untouched stew with great gusto. Alasdair's appetite, on the other hand, flees him entirely, and his only consolation is that his listless picking at his food delays the end of dinner – and whatever horror then awaits him – for a little while longer.

 

 

* * *

 

  
On first glance, the brown-paper-wrapped packages sitting on the prince's bed don't look to be in the least bit horrifying, but Alasdair is suspicious of them all the same. Despite their unprepossessing appearance, the prince is so thrilled by them that he's practically vibrating out of his skin with barely-leashed excitement, which suggests that something of vast importance is concealed inside.  
  
"It's your new uniform," the prince says, grinning at Alasdair. "It arrived from Mlle. Labelle just before I woke you. I thought we could unveil it together."  
  
Not important at all, then, and Alasdair wasted the remains of his stew for no decent reason. He deflates at that realisation, but his drooping shoulders and disgruntled expression do not put a dent in the prince's enthusiasm.  
  
He tears into the largest of the five parcels like a small child on Yuletide morning, scraps of paper and string flying out fast in all directions around him. When the last tattered remnants are discarded, he carefully unfolds the garments revealed, and then makes a low sound of pleasure as he looks them over.  
  
"See," he says, beckoning for Alasdair to come closer, "it's nothing dreadful."  
  
To Alasdair's shock, he doesn't disagree with the prince's assessment. The short jacket and waistcoat are both plain, serviceable black, unadorned with nothing save their silver buttons, which are engraved with the sort of complicated knotwork Alasdair has seen decorating the temples that were once dedicated to the old gods of Britannia.  
  
They lull him into a false sense of security, and thus render him completely unprepared for the contents of the second largest parcel.  
  
It's made from thick fabric patterned with alternating squares of dark green and Gallian blue, bisected centrally with a thin red thread, but, most important of all, it's: "A skirt."  
  
"A kilt," the prince amends. "That isn't going to be an issue, is it, Corporal? I've seen a number of men in Deva clad in similar things, and I understand the Caledonians rarely wear anything but."  
  
"Aye, they might well do, but I certainly don't," Alasdair says firmly. "I'm neither Caledonian nor do I have the legs for a skirt."  
  
"I sincerely doubt that," the prince says, offering him an irritatingly blithe smile. "And, in any case, there should be..." He breaks off for a moment to rifle through the smallest package, and nods in satisfaction at what he discovers within. "Yes, such outfits always come with long hose, and if you pull them up as high as custom demands, there shouldn't be more than the tiniest sliver of your knees visible."  
  
Outside of his immediate family and the guardhouse locker room, no-one's ever seen even that much of Alasdair's legs, so it doesn't really serve to put him at ease as the prince had doubtless intended.  
  
"I'd still be more comfortable in trousers," he says. "Do you think Mlle. Labelle might run me up a pair? I don't mind if they're made of the same fabric."  
  
It's more garish than anything he'd choose himself, but he's willing to compromise that far if the prince has his heart set on the tartan. As he's the one paying for the clothes, it seems only fair.  
  
The prince heaves out a despondent sigh. "If you wish," he says, shaking his head. "I'll send word to Alaina first thing tomorrow."  
  
He neatly refolds the jacket and waistcoat, but when he moves on to the kilt, the movement of his hands gradually slows to a halt. "Corporal," he says, in a small, rough voice, eyes still downcast. "Corporal, I really would like to see the uniform worn as Alaina envisioned it, just once. Do you think you could at least try it on? Please. For me."  
  
He cocks his head towards Alasdair then, his lips still slightly parted on his last word, and for no real reason he can ascertain, Alasdair finds himself nodding.

 

 

* * *

 

  
  
The collar of the starched white shirt is so stiff that it feels as though it's intent on strangling Alasdair even before he fastens the bowtie around his neck, so he decides to forgo both tie and top button both.  
  
The thin-soled shoes are also discarded in favour of his boots, as they're far too short for his feet and pinch his toes intolerably.  
  
He hopes that his attention to the other fiddly little details of the outfit Mlle. Labelle inflicted upon him will appease the prince enough that he's willing to overlook these mild diversions from her 'vision'.  
  
He's attached the useless little scraps of fabric to the garters which hold the hose up around the bottom of his knees; slipped the equally useless little knife behind one of them; donned waistcoat, jacket and sporran.  
  
Nevertheless, he still feels practically naked as he makes the short walk between his own bedroom and the prince's. There seems to be a breeze blowing down the corridor that he'd never once noticed when his legs were snugly ensconced in trousers.  
  
The prince's eyes widen fractionally as he rejoins him, but otherwise his face remains impassive. He holds one up one finger and twirls it around in the air, but when Alasdair compliantly spins on his heel, he laughs and says, " _Plus lentement, s'il vous plaît_."  
  
Alasdair paces a slower circle, cheeks burning, and by the time they come back face to face again, the prince's brow is creased and he's covered his mouth with his hand.  
  
"I look like a twat, don't I?" Alasdair's too flustered to modulate his tone, and the question snaps out harsher than he'd intended. "I can tell you're smirking under there."  
  
"Not even close, Corporal. See?" The prince drops his hand to reveal a huge, fatuous grin. He shakes his head and sighs deeply. "You look absolutely exquisite, just as I thought you would. Which may cause us some problems tonight."  
  
"Tonight?" The word fills Alasdair with far more dread than even his first sight of the kilt had. "How so? What's happening tonight?"  
  
The prince blushes, too, and hurries off to pretend immediate absorption in admiring the Gallian roses in the vase by his bed. "Whilst you were changing," he says to the flowers, "M. Jansen paid a visit to remind me of an engagement that had completely slipped my mind during all the upset of the last few days.  
  
"We're expected at a ball, Corporal, and, cutting the fine figure you do right now, you're bound to impress. I'm afraid you'll probably be fielding offers of alternative employment all night, as I'm sure most of the nobles in attendance will want to try and persuade you that you'd do far better as their personal guard than mine."  
  
No, _this_ is true dread. Alasdair shudders involuntarily. "If they promised I could do without the kilt, I might just take them up on it, sir," he says.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It was nekoian's suggestion that Aly's new uniform should include a kilt. nekoian's ideas = the best ideas.
> 
> The tartan is the Devan equivalent of the Flower of Scotland (the Flower of Caledonia, I suppose).


	34. Chapter 34

Alasdair normally bathes in a tin bath that's too short even for Dylan, and he can squeeze into it only if he folds his back practically in two and bends his knees up around his ears. He always washes quickly and efficiently, because with so much of his skin still exposed to the air, it's an unpleasantly chilly process even with the bath pulled up as close to the kitchen hearth as it will go.  
  
The bath in the prince's chambers is long enough that he can stretch out almost to his full extent, and apart from the very tips of his toes and tops of his knees, his entire body is submerged right up to his shoulders.  
  
He's been soaking for so long that all of his fingers have pruned.  
  
He idles away the time by examining the multitude of bottles and jars that are lined up along the bath's wooden siding: picking them up, reading the ludicrous claims of eternal youth and beauty their labels promise, and sniffing suspiciously at their contents.  
  
He puts each one down again unused, because he's never come across anything like them before and has no idea how they should be applied, in what quantity, or even which part of his person they are intended for. He imagines that itching and rashes and perhaps mild poisoning might result if he were to err on that score, so he thinks it best that he leaves them well alone.  
  
The basket of soaps is much more familiar territory, but not a single one of the bars therein resembles the heavy, orange coal tar soap he uses at home. Instead, there's such a wide variety of shapes, colours and scents that Alasdair can't decide between them for wondering whether one might be better than all the others and if some clue in their patterning might serve to guide him towards it.  
  
He's turning a rounded, purple bar over in his hands, studying the sprigs of leaves imprinted on its flat sides, when the prince knocks at the bathroom door and calls out, "Have you drowned in there, Corporal?"  
  
There's just enough annoyance in his voice that it leads Alasdair to suspect that he's already spent rather longer on his ablutions than the prince had accounted for. He hurriedly lathers the soap. "I'm fine, sir," he calls back. "Almost done."  
  
"I'm glad to hear it. I was beginning to fear that something terrible must have befallen you and I would have to kick down the door and drag you out of the tub."  
  
"Sorry to make you worry, sir."  
  
"Corporal, we need to leave in half an hour," the prince says, his tone turning sharp again. "If you're not finished in five minutes, I may have no choice but to drag you out, anyway."  
  
Alasdair starts scrubbing himself with tremendous zeal and vigour.

 

 

* * *

  
  
  
  
Alasdair holds himself straight-backed and tall as the prince paces around him, eyes narrowed down to glittering, evaluative slits.  
  
He pauses first at Alasdair's left side, and sniffs just as blatantly as he had in the chambers' hallway earlier that day. "Lavender, Corporal? I think the bergamot would have suited you better. Or perhaps the pine."  
  
He sounds disappointed, which Alasdair considers a little unfair. If the prince had wanted him to smell like something in particular, then he should have given him slightly better instructions than, 'You can make use of anything that takes your fancy,' before sending him off for his bath.  
  
"Surely it's better than mud and cow shit, though, sir?" he says stiffly.  
  
"It is." The prince chuckles, and then flicks one hand out as though batting his own concerns aside before setting off walking again.  
  
He slows once more behind Alasdair to tug at the back of his jacket and straighten it out, finds nothing objectionable on his right side, and then comes to a complete halt when they're facing one another again.  
  
"There's something not quite right about the line of your kilt." He frowns. "What are you wearing under it, Corporal?"  
  
"My drawers," Alasdair says, frowning right back.  
  
He hadn't been aware that there were any other options, although it wouldn't have surprised him if Mlle. Labelle had secreted some special undergarments in one of the uniform parcels; her hands had certainly spent enough time in the vicinity of his nethers during their fitting session that she could make a reasonable guess at his size.  
  
"I've heard that the Caledonians don't wear anything at all under their own kilts," the prince says.  
  
"I can't believe that's true," Alasdair says. "It's supposed to be fucking freezing over the wall. Doesn't sound at all sensible to me. In any case, we're not in Caledonia, are we, and what holds there isn't likely to go down well in Deva. Let's say I did go without, and the wind started gusting; it'd fly up as skirts are apt to do, then I'll have half of Highgate calling for the guards to arrest me for indecent exposure."  
  
"And the other half giving thanks to the gods, I imagine," the prince says with a grin. Alasdair scowls at him until he grows serious again, and he then adds, "You're right, of course. You can keep your drawers on with my blessing, Corporal. I doubt anyone would notice the wrinkle unless they were studying you very closely indeed."  
  
And Alasdair doubts there will be a single person at the ball who'd be inclined to study him any more closely than the prince. "Very gracious of you, sir."  
  
The prince nods gravely and then takes a step back, his chin lifting. "And how do I look, Corporal?" he asks.  
  
His coat tonight is black, his waistcoat the same shade as the green patches in the tartan of Alasdair's kilt, and there's a spill of some fluffy white fabric at his throat rather than a tie. As Alasdair is hardly a connoisseur of fashion, he cannot tell at a glance whether any of the clothing is particularly singular or well-made, or even, if he's honest, discern any difference in his dress than his usual day wear. "You'll do," he says.  
  
"I'll ' _do_ '?" The prince places a hand over his heart in the same way he had when they first met in the conservatory, playing at being wounded. "If I had to rely on you to bolster my confidence, I'd never have the courage to step foot outside my own front door."  
  
Alasdair shrugs. "I didn't mean it as an insult, sir. I mean, you look smart, but then you always do." He hesitates for a moment, reconsidering. "Well, apart from when you've just woken up. Or when you're trying sneak around at night. Or when—"  
  
"No more, Corporal, please," the prince says, "or I really will be too ashamed to show my face in public again." His lips purse into a moue of displeasure. "I thought you would have appreciated my boots, at least."  
  
He stretches out one foot and wiggles it around a little so the polished leather catches the light in bright ripples that extend all the way down to the soles. Other than those, Alasdair can see absolutely nothing of any interest about them. "They're nice," he ventures, because the prince's silence seems somehow to be an expectant one which demands an answer. "Very shiny. And very black."  
  
"And low-heeled," the prince finishes for him. "So they shouldn't be too 'clattery'; I know how much that sound irritates you."  
  
"I never said that," says Alasdair, who thinks irritated is far too mild a word to use in relation to his feelings on that subject.  
  
"Which was a remarkable display of restraint on your part. Nevertheless..." The prince laughs, and wags a finger chidingly at Alasdair. "Enough of this. You're making me rattle on _again_ , even though I promised myself I wouldn't let you distract me this time. My host won't expect me to arrive on time, but if we carry on like this, I'm going to be insultingly late."  
  
As Alasdair has no idea what it is about his words or behaviour that causes the prince to 'rattle on', he considers his best course of action is to remain completely still and quiet.  
  
And it appears to be the right one, because the prince adjusts the fall of his own coat, smooths his unbound hair back behind his ears, and then sets off with great purpose towards the door which leads out of his bedroom.  
  
When Alasdair starts to follow him, however, the prince holds up one hand and says, "Please, wait here. There's just one more thing I'd like to do before we leave."  
  
After a great deal of crashing about in what sounds to be his study, he returns bearing a plain brown leather sword belt and scabbard in one hand, and a sword in the other.  
  
"I think this is probably the most suitable sword in my armoury for you to carry," he says, handing it to Alasdair.  
  
It's slightly too light and too short to sit as comfortably in Alasdair's hand as the claymore he had been gifted, but it's just as well-balanced and a beautiful weapon, besides. The pommel bears only a single blue gemstone, which is of a dark, clear hue that complements the steel perfectly. The blade itself is wide and sharp, and is etched with a fleur-de-lis just below the cross-guard.  
  
"Legates are given far more useful weapons to carry than governors," the prince says, his breath catching slightly before the last word.  
  
Dismayed, Alasdair tries to give the sword back to him, but the prince refuses to take it. "Sir," he hisses desperately, "I can't use this. I have absolutely no right to wield an Imperial sword."  
  
"You have every right, Corporal," the prince snaps. "I've no doubts that you would have made a far better soldier than I ever was, if you'd been given the chance to become one.  
  
"Before now, I haven't once drawn it from its scabbard since I was sent home from the war. Don't you think that's a far worse fate for it than being worn by you? It deserves to be used, but I wouldn't entrust it to anyone else."  
  
It's too much, the prince's trust. Alasdair's not sure how he can ever honour it properly, except that, here and now, accepting the sword will perhaps suffice for the moment.  
  
The prince doesn't look smug when he takes the belt, or even vindicated; he appear more relieved than anything else.    
  
"You look perfect," he says quietly when Alasdair buckles it around his waist. "I really am going to have to keep a very close eye on you tonight."

 

 


	35. Chapter 35

Their host's estate, the prince informs Alasdair as their carriage trundles along the long, twisting driveway towards it, was originally built for one of the Legates who fought to conquer Britannia and was gifted to him by the then Emperor in recognition of his skill and bravery in battle.  
  
"He might have been a brave man, but sadly he was also very fond of gambling," the prince says. "The current Lady Foster's great-great-grandfather won the house and grounds from him in a dice game, and thereafter his title on a single hand of cards."  
  
"Sounds like he was a lucky bloke," Alasdair says. "Lord Foster, that is."  
  
"He manufactured his own luck, or so the rumours go.  The official story, though, is that the ancestral Foster made his fortune from mining in some part of the world you've probably never heard of. I certainly hadn't.  
  
"However the family's money was made, they're extremely generous with it nowadays. Lady Foster donates so much each year for the upkeep of the fine public buildings of Highgate that M. Jansen thought it imprudent  for me to refuse her invitation for this evening's festivities. I would have preferred to accompany my brother, sister and cousins to the revue they're attending in Eastgate, but I have responsibilities they don't, so..." The prince gives a heavy sigh, and then asks, "Have you ever been to a ball before, Corporal?"  
  
Alasdair stares at him. The prince stares back, looking politely interested, which suggests the question had, unbelievably, been a genuine one.  
  
"I can't claim to be a member of even _Old Town_ 's high society. Of course I've never been to a ball," he says, not bothering to hide his incredulity.  
  
"Oh." The prince's eyebrows shoot up in surprise. "When you said you learnt how to dance from your father, I presumed it was for that reason."  
  
"I'm sure Da would have liked us to go to them, like he did when he was younger and the Kirklands still had a bit of money to their name, but by the time Cait and I came along, he'd fallen out of touch with everyone who might have invited us to such things."  
  
Or so he had said. Alasdair had always thought it much more probable that his old Highgate friends liked to pretend that he'd moved somewhere so distant they couldn't possibly stay in contact with him, rather than the few miles further into town he had in actuality. If you tumble down low enough, it seems, you might as well have disappeared from the perspective of those at the top.  
  
"In any case," Alasdair continues, "my 'learning to dance' was almost completely theoretical. Da would write out the steps on his chalkboard, and we'd memorise them, but we didn't really have the space to practice properly. He did make me waltz around the back yard with him a time or two, but I think that was more to give Ma a giggle at our expense than anything else."  
  
The prince nods once, and then turns to gaze silently out of the window at his side. As they draw closer to the house and start passing by trees festooned with lanterns, his face is illuminated in bright flashes that make his expression much easier to read. He seems pensive, but nevertheless keeps his peace until the carriage rumbles to a halt outside Foster manor's impressive front door.  
  
He then says without looking towards Alasdair, "My palace has a fine ballroom. I could teach you properly, if you like."  
  
Those few practical dancing lessons with Da had, Alasdair recalls, had involved a great deal of manhandling in the name of improving his posture and the position of his arms. The mere act of imagining the same thing happening with the prince in Da's place makes Alasdair's skin feel as though it's suddenly shrunk several sizes, growing tight and suffocating, and the reality of it would surely be an order of magnitude more uncomfortable yet.  
  
"I'd rather not, if you don't mind, sir," he says.  
  
"Why would I mind, Corporal?" the prince asks, clearly aiming for an upbeat tone, but missing it by a hairsbreadth in just such a way that makes him sound slightly hurt instead. He opens the carriage door before the coachman has chance to dismount and do so for him, but pauses with one foot on the outer step to say, "Not that it matters whether you can dance or not, in any case. You are, after all, on duty, so I'm afraid you'll have to enjoy everything from the sidelines tonight."

 

 

* * *

 

  
  
Even though Lady Foster's ballroom is so vast that Alasdair can barely make out its far end, it's crowded enough that it takes him and the prince a good couple of minutes to delicately squeeze and 'pardon me' their way across it to a patch of free space big enough that they can stand and take stock for a while.  
  
"Well," the prince says, sweeping his arm out grandly, "what do you think?"  
  
Alasdair thinks he's likely going to boil to death in his heavy new uniform, because with this many people crammed in close together the temperature's already almost unbearably high. He thinks that if the heat doesn't finish him off, he might choke on the mingled stink of a myriad competing perfumes, colognes, and beautifying lotions and potions which lies so heavily in the air that it's a struggle to breathe. He thinks that if the orchestra that's obviously hidden away somewhere in the heaving mass doesn't stop obsessively tuning their instruments and start playing something with a discernible tune soon, either his skull will split in two or he'll be inclined to track down the violinist who is the most persistent offender and snap his fucking bow into pieces small enough that they'd be useful only as toothpicks afterwards.  
  
Before he has chance to think of a suitable way of wording his complaints so that they don't sound quite as much like a fractious child's whining as they do in his head, a man oils out of the crowd and throws himself into a bow so ludicrously overblown that it makes Dylan's seem like the pinnacle of restraint.  
  
" _Votre Altesse_ ," he says to the prince's knees, rolling his r for such a long time that Alasdair could almost believe that he's deliberately mocking the Gallian accent.  
  
The prince definitely appears to take offence to it, if only for a moment. By the time the man straightens up again, the prince's sneer has smoothed away, leaving behind no evidence of it ever having been there save for faint glimmers of irritation in the depths of his eyes.  
  
"Lord Mason," the prince says, holding out one hand which the lord proceeds to press his lips against with a slobbery enthusiasm which makes Alasdair glad for the prince's sake that ball etiquette demands the wearing of gloves.  
  
When Lord Mason finally backs away from the prince and Alasdair is able to take stock of him properly, he's as unimpressed by his appearance as his behaviour.  
  
He's almost as tall as Alasdair himself, but built along the same, gangling lines as Michael. Although his frock coat has clearly been carefully cut and padded in an attempt to disguise that fact, the resulting contrast with his skinny legs only serves to emphasise it.  
  
His nose is sharp, his chin even sharper, and coupled with his gingery hair atop them and scrubby little beard below, the resemblance to an undernourished fox is uncanny.  
  
Still, Alasdair wouldn't have thought much of it – a person can't help what nature gave them, after all – had the lord not then leered at him in such a lurid fashion that he feels as though he's been stripped down to his vest and drawers by it.  
  
Lord Mason, he then concludes, is a very unattractive sort of man indeed.  
  
"You new guard?" he says to the prince in Gallian. His eyes take a leisurely stroll down Alasdair's chest and then set up camp somewhere in the region of his thighs. "He's even more handsome than you described."  
  
"He's also fluent in Gallian," the prince replies in the Imperial trade tongue, "so you're no doubt embarrassing him, _mon cher_ Mason." He takes hold of the lord's arm and then very firmly steers him away from Alasdair. "Now, I promised you the first dance tonight when last we met, did I not? We really should be taking our places before the floor fills up entirely."  
  
As they start walking, their bodies press so close together that there wouldn't be sufficient room to slip a piece of paper between their shoulders.  
  
Alasdair had thought that the prince's relationship was a fictitious one, an occasional alibi and nothing more, but seeing him and Lord Mason together like this makes him wonder if his understanding had perhaps been a little faulty on that score.  
  
It also makes him wonder if he'd got the wrong impression when it came to the prince's tastes, too.

 

 

* * *

  
  
  
In a woeful display of inadequate personal guarding, Alasdair had quickly lost sight of the prince and Lord Mason amongst the other couples gracefully twirling their way around the dance floor.  
  
Barging his way through the throng in search of them seemed as though it would be an even worse idea than leaving the prince unattended for a few minutes, so he'd drawn back to the area where he had been standing with the prince before Lord Mason foisted himself upon them, reasoning that it'd probably be the first place the prince would think to look for him once he noticed he was missing.  
  
Within those few minutes, Alasdair had been approached by three young ladies and one young gentleman wanting to engage him for the next dance, and a gimlet-eyed old woman who'd tried to lift his kilt with the end of her walking cane and take a peek underneath.  
  
He'd then retreated yet further to a nice, secluded spot where he was protected on three sides by a wall, fireplace and tall potted fern, respectively.  
  
He pushes himself up onto his toes when a polite smattering of applause for the orchestra marks the end of the first dance, but even from that lofty vantage point, he doesn't see a single sign of the prince before the music starts again.  
  
He does, however, attract the attention of another familiar face, and an unexpected one, at that.  
  
Corporal Jones waves at him energetically when their eyes meet, and then steams towards him, cutting a broad swath through the lords and ladies standing between the two of them with the determined pistoning of her skinny elbows.  
  
"Kirkland, I hardly recognised you," she says, when the last unfortunate noble in her path is sent stumbling aside. "You scrub up well."  
  
Jones looks so different herself, with her hair curled and clad in a smart coat – which very closely resembles the prince's own, except that it's tailored to tuck in where the prince's goes straight down – and breeches, that it's difficult to picture her now wearing the battered breastplate and guard-issue trousers Alasdair is so used to seeing her in.  
  
"So do you," he says, smiling.  
  
"This is your job now?" Jones asks, leaning against the fireplace beside Alasdair. "I'd rather be out patrolling Old Town."  
  
"I would, too, but I'm only on secondment to the prince for a couple of weeks; I'll be back out there soon enough. I think I can grin and bear it until then."  
  
Jones glances at him out of the corner of her eye, and then says cautiously, "You know, there's a rumour going around the guardhouse that the governor really employed you because you and him are—"  
  
"It's not true," Alasdair says, neither wanting nor needing her to complete the remark. When it comes to his involvement with the prince, the unfortunate truth is that people's minds only seem to travel in one direction. "And it's never going to be true. I'm just looking out for him because the poisonings have got him worried about his own safety. He asked for me specifically because he'd been impressed by my swordplay when he watched us sparring in the practice yard that time."  
  
"It looked to me as though that wasn't all he was impressed by," Jones says, chuckling. She laughs even harder when Alasdair glowers at her, and only just manages splutter out an appeasing, "Not happening now; not going to happen later. Got it. I'll make sure to tell everyone at work."  
  
"Good," Alasdair says, and then, in an effort to distract Jones' thoughts away from the prince, adds, "What are you doing here, anyway? At least I've got the excuse that I'm being paid for it."  
  
"My father's Lady Foster's lawyer, and she always sends us invitations to these sorts of things. My parents used attend on their own, but now me and my brother have both come of age, they've started insisting we come too so they can show us off and attempt to persuade some poor noble or other to start courting us." Jones looks at him beseechingly. "I don't suppose you know if the governor is interested in women, do you?"  
  
"He's never said anything outright, but he certainly seems to be," Alasdair says, remembering how the prince acted around Mlle. Labelle.  
  
"I was hoping you'd say no." Jones' face falls. "Mother dangled Matt in front of him at the Fosters' last party, and he didn't take the bait, but she's still determined she's going to do the same with me this time around. I was hoping that I could tell her that it was pointless to bother even trying. You don't mind if I hide from her here with you for a little while, do you, Kirkland?"  
  
"Don't worry," Alasdair tells her with mock solemnity, "I'll protect you from your Ma."  
  
He might be doing a piss-poor job of guarding the prince at the moment, but he thinks he can probably manage that.

 

 

* * *

 

 

After an hour's dancing, the party adjourns to an equally enormous dining hall beyond the ballroom to allow the participants to take a breather and refuel for the second set of dances to come.  
  
With everyone seated to rest their aching feet, or busy denuding the buffet with a familiar sort of rapaciousness that apparently even the rich become afflicted by when presented with free food, Alasdair suspects it will be easier to track down the prince.  
  
He walks up and down the rows of circular tables at the leisurely, even pace he uses on his patrols, and the diligent eye he casts over each is met more than once by a wink, roguish smile, or fluttered fan from someone who's likely assumed him to be either a Caledonian noble or else a member of the Devan upper crust like themselves, albeit one with a daringly eccentric wardrobe. If they knew he was just one of the prince's many servants, they'd doubtless be horrified with themselves.  
  
Eventually, he uncovers the prince tucked away in a tiny alcove at the back of the room that's half-hidden by the one of the long, golden sheets of fabric that are hanging in swags from the high ceiling.  
  
Unlike the rest of the ballgoers, he's clutching neither plate nor glass. Instead, his hands are filled with Lord Mason: one clasped around his elbow, the other resting, open-palmed, against his hip.  
  
Lord Mason's hands, too, are busy with the prince. His left is buried in the prince's hair, fingers wrapped around with its silken strands. Alasdair can't quite work out where the right one is. He doesn't think he wants to.  
  
His immediate instinct is to withdraw and pretend he hadn't seen a thing, but the prince had told him that they should be careful not to become separated for any longer than was strictly necessary. It had been the only thing he'd claimed to expect of Alasdair tonight.  
  
So he sidles as close to the two men as he dares, and then, when the awkward shuffling of his feet fails to rouse the prince's interest, he gives a polite cough, as he's seen M. Jansen employ to great effect when the prince's mind wanders during their letter readings.  
  
The prince glares at him. "What are you doing here, Corporal?" he snaps.  
  
"Erm, attempting to watch your back, sir?" Alasdair says, perplexed. He sounds a little foolish even to his own ears, and it comes as no surprise when Lord Mason snickers at him. "That is why you're paying me, right?"  
  
"I am paying you to be my personal guard, which demands slightly more of you than simply looming near me, looking threatening," the prince says, and there's a scornful note in his voice that Alasdair has never heard directed his way before. One that seems to bespeak a very unflattering estimation of his intelligence. "Discretion is the hallmark of every good servant, and something you should take pains to learn if you want to remain in my service. As you can see, Lord Mason is watching me quite adequately on his own. I'm perfectly safe."  
  
It sounds as though he's being dismissed, so Alasdair takes a step back, but the renewed memory of the prince's earlier insistence that they stick together keeps him from taking another.  
  
Lord Mason snickers again, and then whispers something in the prince's ear that makes his colour heighten from the hollow of his throat all the way up to his hairline.  
  
"Run along, Corporal," the prince says distractedly, sliding his hand along Lord Mason's arm to tangle their fingers together. "If, by some small miracle, I require your attention, I'll find you myself. Don't come looking for me again."  
  
The prince leans towards Lord Mason, his lips parting, and Alasdair hurriedly turns his back on them, his own cheeks burning, and wrestling with the sudden urge to knock both of their heads together.  
  
He is, it seems, completely superfluous to the prince this evening, and he can't understand why the man was so adamant he should attend when he obviously has no need of his company or even his sword arm.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Alasdair makes a beeline for his safe spot in the ballroom once the dancing resumes, only to find that it has already been appropriated by Jones, who has flattened herself so thoroughly against the wall that it looks as though she's trying to become one with the wallpaper.  
  
Unfortunately, she catches sight of him before he has chance to swerve from his path and set out in search of safer havens, and then calls his name in a particularly stagey hiss that actually carries further than her normal voice.  
  
"You'll be glad to know I managed to avoid mother and father all the way through supper, no thanks to you," she says as Alasdair reluctantly joins her. "Where did you disappear to?"  
  
"I searched out the prince, but he wasn't best pleased to be found," Alasdair says. "He basically told me to piss off, so I'm not sure what I should be doing with myself now."  
  
"We can people watch; that's always the best part of balls, anyway," Jones says brightly. "And drink champagne, of course."  
  
She holds out something that looks like effervescent white wine, and it's tempting to take it, especially as there's barely more than a mouthful in the small, slim glass, but Alasdair is technically still on duty, even though the prince doesn't appear to give a shit either way,.  
  
"Naw, I shouldn't. You keep that," he says. "I presume the watching's still worth it if you're sober?"  
  
At Jones' vigorous nodding, Alasdair squeezes in between her and the fireplace, and asks, "So, what's so entertaining about this crowd, then?"  
  
"Oh, I don't know." Jones shrugs. "Matt and I generally just have a laugh at ridiculous things people are wearing. Like" – her eyes dart around, and then widen slightly when they settle on a short, portly gentleman standing a few feet away – "his hat, for example."  
  
Alasdair has never seen a purple top hat before, never mind one surmounted by a red feather almost as tall as the man wearing it. He agrees that it is indeed ridiculous, but goggling at it only provides a very momentary distraction, and feels a little unkind besides.  
  
"And?" he prompts, hoping that it isn't the only entertainment on offer, otherwise the remaining two hours of the ball are going to stretch out into an eternity.  
  
"There's usually something scandalous happening with the dancing. People choosing the wrong partners, arses being grabbed that shouldn't..." Jones stutters into silence, mouth gaping wide, and points stiffly towards the dance floor. "Have you seen who your prince is dancing with?"  
  
Gaze following her finger, Alasdair can pick the prince out only because his hair shines like gold amongst the darker heads of the couples surrounding him. All he can tell of the prince's companion is that she is slimly built and near the same height him.  
  
"Well, I can _see_ her," he says, "but I still don't know who the hells she is."  
  
"That's Lady Alice Churchfield," Jones says, frowning. "I asked her to dance at the Elliots' last ball but she told me she 'didn't care for it'. Looks as though she cares for it well enough if it's someone with a title doing the asking. This Highgate lot are such snobs."  
  
It had never occurred to Alasdair before that a person from Eastgate might find themselves just as much of an outsider when it came to the nobility as he does himself. It might actually, he thinks, feel even more alienating to be so close to them – to be able to afford to wear the same clothes, ride in the same carriages, and attend the same parties – and still have them look down on you and consider you somehow, indefinably, not as worthy of notice as themselves.  
  
"I don't think she's likely to have a second dance with him," he says, hoping that it might help to improve Jones' mood a little. "See, Lord Mason's lurking at the edge of the dance floor, ready to pounce as soon as this song's over."  
  
"They've been practically joined the hip all night, I'm surprised he was able to prise himself away for this long. I don't know how the governor can stand it," Jones says, her nose wrinkling.  
  
"I take it you don't think much of Lord Mason?"  
  
"He's vain, and arrogant, and likes the sound of his own voice more than pretty much anything else. I got stuck with him at one of Lord Costa's parties, and he talked at me for an hour straight about his new trousers. He didn't even pause for breath!"  
  
"Him and the prince sound like they were made for one another, then," Alasdair says, solely because the petty meanness of the observation makes him feel slightly better about the prince's frosty treatment of him in the dining hall.  
  
He isn't certain that he believes it, though.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Shortly after Alasdair's pocket watch chimes midnight, one of Lady Foster's red liveried servants beckons him close, and then says in a discreet undertone, "Your master is unwell. If you take over the care of him, I'll send for his carriage."  
  
Any unease Alasdair might have felt at the servant's words evaporate in the instant he reaches the prince's side.  
  
Judging by the way he's hunched in his chair, and the glazed cast of his eyes, he's simply been struck down with a mild case of too-much-champagne.  
  
"Right," Alasdair says brusquely, reaching for his wrist, "let's get you home, shall we?"  
  
"Don't touch me," the prince barks out, moving his arm aside before Alasdair's can take hold of it. "I'm perfectly capable of standing on my own."  
  
It takes him several attempts, and one closely fought battle against gravity, but he does eventually manage to lever himself upright.  
  
"Well done, sir," Alasdair says. "Now, let's see you walking, then."  
  
The prince swings one foot forward and plants it down with a good deal of force, but he then appears a little puzzled about what he should now do about his trailing leg. He starts to sway alarmingly, so Alasdair makes a grab for his shoulder.  
  
The prince yanks it away from him so violently that he nearly overbalances himself, and then snarls, "Stop fussing, Corporal."  
  
"Fine," Alasdair snarls back, annoyed now by both the prince's obviously foul mood, and the prospect of a needlessly and tortuously long stagger out to the carriage as the prince vainly tries to remember the sequence of movements that will enable him to walk with anything approaching efficiency. "Don't blame me if you trip and break your neck."  
  
If he refuses to be helped along his way, Alasdair will just have to resign himself to trundling along behind him with his arms outstretched as he had when the prince had got himself into a similar state at the apothecary.  
  
He doesn't feel quite as eager to catch him before he can do himself an injury this time around, though.

 

 

* * *

 

 

The prince sits slumped and silent in the carriage as they peel away from the manor, which suits Alasdair just fine, as he couldn't have vouched for his temper holding if the man's querulous complaints had continued for even a minute longer.

By the time they reach the end of the driveway, however, the prince has begun to stir, his mouth opening and closing soundlessly as though he's working himself up to saying something that he can't quite recall the words for.

As he struggles to find his tongue, Alasdair concentrates on steadying his own breathing, and forcing down the dull heat that has kindled itself in his chest and at the base of his skull as he has had to on so many occasions since he learnt the painful lesson that his anger was something best kept tightly leashed and contained.

With so many years of practice behind him, it's now the work of mere seconds, and by the time the prince does finally speak, he can listen with equanimity.

"I've had to apologise so often already that I fear you may no longer believe me when I say I'm sorry, Corporal," the prince says, his voice surprisingly clear, "but I am sorry, all the same. I'm sorry I spoke to you so rudely when you approached me in the dining hall. On the spur of the moment, I'm afraid I couldn't think of any better method of keeping you away from Lord Mason. He had made some very inappropriate suggestions regarding you as we were standing there together, and... Well, I didn't want to chance you overhearing them." He sighs heavily, rubbing at his eyes with one forearm. "I fear I badly misjudged his character. On closer acquaintance, he's... a thoroughly unpleasant man."

Alasdair's first thought is to be offended that the prince believes him the sort of person who would wilt upon hearing a bit of coarse language - he's been the recipient of many of the earthier breed of compliments and propositions over the course of his adult life, and never one fainted away in shock - but then his second, coming close on its heels, is that a suggestion which a worldly man like the prince found inappropriate was probably far viler than he could even imagine.

"You're forgiven, sir," he says. "Though perhaps it might be best if we devise some sort of signal that means I shouldn't take what you're saying at face value. You could blink out a phrase in code. 'I'm only _pretending_ to be an arse', perhaps?"

"Perhaps." The prince laughs raggedly, and then stretches his legs out to their full extent as he had the first time they'd shared a carriage ride. Unlike then, his boots stop short within an inch or so of striking against Alasdair's. "I'll also have to devise myself a new excuse to explain any late night absences from the palace. I don't even want to _intimate_   that I might be visiting Lord Mason anymore. I think it's best if I put him at as much as a remove as possible, in my family's minds as well as my own."

With that, he moves his legs again, which closes the gap between his right foot and Alasdair's. The touch is so light that it could almost be accidental, but Alasdair believes it's anything but. The prince is, he thinks, seeking reassurance through it in a very basic way. He thinks that whatever Lord Mason had said had unsettled the prince more than he's likely willing to admit.

Alasdair shifts in his seat, straightens his own leg, and presses it, ever so slightly, into the contact.

 

 


	36. Chapter 36

At first, Alasdair ignores the banging because he's still entangled in the last, wispy vestiges of a dream, and he mistakes it for the thunderous heartbeat of the great red dragon he has been doing battle with half the night.  
  
He then ignores it because his blankets are warm and the air outside them is decidedly not, and because, to the best of his knowledge, his nebulously defined job description does not encompass greeting the prince's guests.  
  
But whomsoever the visitor is, they're not only a tenacious fucker, they also lack a basic sense of rhythm. The knocks are so irregularly grouped, varying in both volume and meter, that they're impossible for Alasdair to relegate to the level of background noise and thus tune out.  
  
After a couple of minutes filled with increasingly detailed fantasies of dashing the knocker's brains out against the nearest flat surface – or, failing that, his own – and an accompanying absence of sound from the bedroom next to his, Alasdair's fraying patience finally snaps.  
  
He flings himself out of bed, pulls on the nearest pair of trousers and shirt to hand, and stomps out into the hallway to yank open the outer chamber door with a snarled, "What the fuck do you want?"  
  
M. Jansen stands transfixed for a moment, clenched hand still upraised, and then hurriedly hops backwards until he's safely outside the range of Alasdair's fists.  
  
"His Highness?" The only hint that his words are meant to be taken as a question is the infinitesimal rise of one of the secretary's pale eyebrows.  
  
"Still in his bed," Alasdair says. "You might have to hoist him out of it yourself if you want him to get moving. He seems to sleep very deeply."  
  
"I'm do not have permission to enter His Highness' bedchamber."  
  
"That's too bad, because—"  
  
"I presume you do, though," M. Jansen says flatly. His gaze drops like a stone to Alasdair's bare feet, and Alasdair's toes curl, reflexively and involuntarily, burrowing themselves down into the thick pile of the carpet.  
  
He wants to say 'no' because he's getting pretty damn tired of the near universal assumption that he and the prince are intimately involved. He wants to shout 'no' and slam the door closed in M. Jansen's irritatingly non-judgemental face.  
  
He's certain that it would feel immensely satisfying if he did, and the only thing that prevents him from giving into the impulse is the suspicion that the secretary would immediately resume his knocking. He seems like the sort of man who's not easily swayed from a course of action he has deemed necessary, no matter how fruitless it may be.  
  
"I wouldn't be much use as a personal guard if I didn't," he says in no's place, placing a great deal of emphasis on the word 'guard' to reinforce the idea that this privilege is an entirely professional one. "It'd be no good if he was being throttled to death in there, and I had to hover on the threshold, hoping that he might still have enough breath left to choke out permission for me to enter, would it?"  
  
"Indeed," M. Jansen says. "Corporal, could you please go and wake His Highness? He has a meeting scheduled for ten o'clock with the heads of the Old Town guilds, and if we delay the reading of his correspondence for much longer, I fear we may have to postpone it until this afternoon."  
  
For the first time since meeting him, Alasdair can hear the evidence of some emotion in M. Jansen's voice; a slight strain in his words that suggests that the prospect of such a drastic change to the prince's schedule might be personally distressing to him.  
  
"I can try," Alasdair says, reluctant to commit himself completely due to his abject failure at waking the prince the last time he attempted to do so. "I'm not promising that it'll be the work of a moment or anything, though."  
  
"As quickly as you can will have to do, I suppose, Corporal. Please let His Highness know I will be awaiting him in my office," M. Jansen says. He gives Alasdair a brusque nod before pivoting smartly on his heel and setting off at his usual swift clip away down the corridor again.

 

 

* * *

 

  
  
  
Last night, the prince had seemingly exhausted his last reserves of sobriety to converse with Alasdair in the carriage, and by the time they arrived back at the palace, he couldn't even manage the wobble-legged, ungainly walk he had traversed Lady Foster's manor with.  
  
Alasdair had ended up having to half-carry, half-drag him up two flights of stairs, balance him against his hip as he opened the door to his bedroom, and then practically lift him up onto his bed. The prince might have seen fit to take liberties with Alasdair's boots when he himself had passed out there, but after contemplating both their tight fit for a while and the determined grasping of the prince's hands, which seemed intent on taking hold of any part Alasdair which strayed within reach, he determined it best to leave him fully dressed.  
  
He had poured the prince a glass of water and placed it at his bedside before retreating to his own bed, and despite the poor light, he can see well enough to note that it has remained untouched since then. Were it Michael in the prince's place, Alasdair would not hesitate to upend it over his head.  
  
The prince had seemed resistant to such treatment yesterday morning, however, and Alasdair does not want to risk that he might ruin the fine mattress by soaking it, besides.  
  
Instead, he shouts "Sir!" at the top of his lungs until the realisation strikes him that he's being just as stubborn and intractable as M. Jansen had been about his knocking, as the prince has not stirred so much as a finger throughout.  
  
His mind turns again to Michael, and all the methods he and Dylan have employed over the past two years – since their little brother started trying to hibernate his life away – to get him to shift his lazy arse come morning.  
  
He thus stomps across the room with deliberately heavy feet to wrench open the curtains. It is, however, rather less likely to be the shock to the system that he had intended it as, because the sky outside is so thoroughly overcast that the room is illuminated only a fraction more strongly than it had been beforehand.  
  
Still, it's bright enough that he can now clearly make out the prince's unmoving form. His hair is tousled –  some of its knotted strands splayed across the curve of his one visible cheek and the rest straggling out along the pillow behind his head – and he had clearly summoned up enough coordination at some point during the night to disrobe himself, as his shoulders are bare.  
  
Alasdair draws deep on every drop of his courage, but even that isn't sufficient to power more than two strides forwards, because his reticence to touch the prince's naked skin is so much the stronger.  
  
M. Jansen would be furious if he gave up and left the prince to awaken naturally, no doubt, but then again, Alasdair can't imagine that the secretary has the authority to punish him in any way for his failure, nor that the prince would allow such a thing, even if he had. He can damn well silently fume and angrily clear his throat at the prince for here until eternity for all Alasdair cares, because...  
  
Because he's too much of a coward to put his hand to a man's arm? There's no way to follow that particular line of thought through other than to arrive at that slightly embarrassing conclusion. He would anger M. Jansen, and maybe even tarnish the prince's reputation with the guild leaders if he slept in past the time for their meeting, and for what?  
  
The prince will be entirely sober by now, so his hands will be kept to themselves. Alasdair trusts that – he _knows_ that – therefore he can't pinpoint exactly what it is that he _does_ fear might happen. There's nothing more than a faint chill in his guts and a vague sense of uneasiness; no concrete reason, at all. He's being fucking ridiculous.  
  
He steels his nerves again, and then forces himself to take the last few steps that bring him to prince's side  
.  
Standing by the window, their respective angles had concealed all but the prince's head and the topmost slope of his shoulders from Alasdair's eyes, but from his new perspective, the view is revelatory.  
  
The prince appears to have an unsettled night, as his bed sheets are badly rumpled: twisted around his legs at the bottom, and at the top, crushed down beneath his arm on his right side, exposing a large portion of his back.  
  
What modest thought Alasdair has ever given to the subject of what nobles may look like under their clothes led him to expect them to have flawless, pampered skin, unblemished by hard toil and the cheap, harsh soap lesser mortals had to make do with.  
  
The prince's back is covered in thick, straight scars; so many, overlapping, that it's difficult to either enumerate them or even determine where one ends and another begins.  
  
One of the gnarled old veterans who drinks in the Lost Antler has scars which look very similar, still stark and pale against his sun-leathered skin, but the prince's couldn't possibly have been caused in the same way. No-one would countenance it happening to an _officer_.  
  
After all of the noise and commotion he'd created deliberately, it's the quiet, shocked catch of Alasdair's breath which finally rouses the prince.  
  
He quickly glances up at Alasdair, and then grabs hold of the edge of his quilt, tugging at it as though in an effort to cover himself up. The attempt is soon abandoned, though, and he lets his hand fall, open-palmed, against the mattress.  
  
Alasdair thinks that maybe the kindest thing he could do would be to simply relay M. Jansen's message and act as though he'd seen nothing out of the ordinary at all, but the prince finds his voice before he has chance to.  
  
"The first half of my suitable punishment," he gasps out, "for aiding the centurion's escape."  
  
Even after hearing it from the man's own lips, Alasdair can hardly believe it. Caitlin's told him that it's still frequently doled out to the rank and file legionaries, to punish them for insubordination or dereliction of duty, but the prince had been a _Legate_. They're stripped of their rank or dishonourably discharged if they fuck up, he's never heard of one being _flogged_ before, as though he was just another common soldier.  
  
An order like that could only ever have come directly from the army's very highest command: either the Emperor himself or his second, the King of Gallia.  
  
"You were right, sir," he says, barely able to push the words past the sudden lump in his throat. "I was being far too charitable when I called your father a bastard."  
  
"In this instance, he could have done far worse. He reminded me of that before it started. 'It's only a hundred lashes, Francis. By rights, you should have been executed. Next time, you will be.'"  
  
Alasdair still can't fathom how a father could inflict such cruelties on their own child, but he suspects that it's an understanding that eludes the prince too, and he likely doesn't need to be reminded of it. Sympathy would be useless, a change of subject or pity insulting, and thus strictured, Alasdair cannot think of a single thing to say.  
  
For a time, they remain in silence save for the mingled sound of their breathing – Alasdair's a little too fast, and the prince's stuttering harshly in his chest – but the prince finally breaks it by saying, very softly, "I can't bear to look at them, and I haven't, in the strictest sense, taken a lover since they were inflicted, so I've not had the opportunity to ask another's opinion. My doctors were all very encouraging, of course, but I think you're far less likely to want to spare my feelings. Please, Corporal" – he chuckles without a trace of humour – "tell me exactly how ugly they are."  
  
Alasdair reckons that pretty much any random passing stranger on the street would probably be better able to answer the prince, given how unused he is to judging others' bodies in an aesthetic sense, but he tries his best, regardless. He can't ignore the note of desperation in the prince's voice, and it sounds as though he's kept this hidden away from everyone, so Alasdair – ill-equipped as he is – might be only option he has to potentially ease his worries.  
  
So he looks more closely at the prince's back than he had allowed himself to before, when it had felt too much like gawping. Some of the scars are slightly reddened, others slightly raised, but the skin in-between and surrounding them is smooth and clear. Even though it was obvious that the whip had cut deeply in places, it had not destroyed the fine patterning of muscles that cover the prince's back, or the line of his broad shoulders or narrow waist. They're merely surface details laid on top of that wider truth.  
  
"Well, I wouldn't call them pretty," he says, "but I still think what's ugliest is the story behind them. They are what they are, and there aren't many people who are lucky enough to get through life ompletely unscarred. I'm certainly not one of them. You don't think my scar makes me ugly, do you?"  
  
"Of course not," the prince says immediately, sounding dismayed that Alasdair would ask such a question. He pauses for a moment, and then laughs again, although this time with far more warmth. "How is it that you always know exactly what to say?"  
  
"I wasn't aware that I did, sir," Alasdair says, blinking in surprise. "My brothers have always told me that I wouldn't know what tact was if it jumped up and bit me on the arse."  
  
"Well, you always know what to say to me, then." The prince's eyelids flicker open, and he offers Alasdair a tremulous smile. "Thank you, Corporal."  
  
"Any time, sir," Alasdair says haltingly, still not certain precisely what it is he's supposed to have done.  
  
The prince takes in a deep breath, and after he's exhaled it, he sounds like his usual self for the first time since he awoke. "Unless you want to be called on to appraise more parts of my body, I suggest you leave now. As I warned you before, I sleep naked, and I want to be able to get up and dressed, post-haste. I presume M. Jansen is pulling out his hair in frustration over my lateness as it is, and I'd like to keep our afternoon free, if we can.  
  
"There's something we need to do, and I think I've put it off for far too long already."

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hitsu, you were right about why Francis wanted to change his wet shirt so quickly!
> 
> ___________
> 
> This story started life as four very loosely connected images/ideas that the whole AU was then built up around:  
> 1) Aly and Angus as guards, finding a corpse with a rose on its chest in the rain  
> 2) Francis as a kind of reverse Scarlet Pimpernel  
> 3) Aly wanting to join the army and not being able to, and Francis serving in the army when he didn't want to  
> and 4) Francis being punished for something that happened whilst he was in the army that resulted in scars that mirror FtF!France's
> 
> Now all four have finally been covered, it's back to the investigation-ing next chapter.


	37. Chapter 37

For the first three weeks after he was stabbed, Alasdair had been as helpless as one of the baby birds Dylan so often brought home with him.  
  
For three weeks, he had lain on his belly, and once a day, Mr Morton would stop by the apothecary to poke and prod at his stitches, checking that they were holding as they should and no infection had set in. The rest of the time, he was left solely in Ma's care.  
  
Whilst Caitlin and Dylan took inept care of the shop and Michael respectively, she smothered him in pungent medicinal ointments and tinctures, spooned thin gruel and strengthening broth into his mouth, sponged his brow, and on those nights when his fevered sweats were so heavy that they soaked his nightshirt through, she bathed him as though he was a child again.  
  
He would have found it a humiliating experience if he'd been able to move much more than a finger without feeling as though his ribs would rip clean through his back or else he might throw up every last morsel of food he had ever eaten.  
  
For the first two months after Mr Morton had pronounced him healed and subsequently washed his hands of him, he could only walk with cautious little steps like a rheumaticky old man. Arthur, Dylan and Caitlin were always running hither and thither to fetch and carry for him, because he could not stretch his arms above his head to reach the high shelves in the kitchen anymore, or stoop to pick anything up from the floor.  
  
Over the year that followed, he diligently followed a regime of gentle stretches and limbering exercises of his own devising, and his strength and dexterity gradually returned to him.  
  
By the time he turned nineteen and came of age, he was losing sparring matches to Caitlin just as narrowly as he had been before his injury.  
  
His recovery had been a slow, frustrating process, and now that he knows what the prince conceals beneath his shirt, he has to wonder whether Gallian doctors might actually be working magic right under the nose of their king.  
  
Granted, the prince's cuts had not bitten as deeply as Alasdair's had, but his scars are far more numerous, and they cover a far greater portion of his back. A year out from his own wounding, Alasdair had still held himself a little stiffly, because the new skin at the base of his spine was thick and gnarled, and did not stretch as well as the old, and he was plagued day and night by sudden wrenching twinges and long lingering aches.  
  
Trailing behind the prince as he takes his morning constitutional after M. Jansen's begrudgingly truncated letter reading, Alasdair keeps a careful eye on the man, looking for the signs of discomfort that he is sure he must simply have overlooked before.  
  
But the prince walks with his arms swinging freely, his strides long and sure, and he bends to clean dust from his boots, stretches up to pluck an apple from an overhanging branch, all with ease and grace.  
  
When they turn from the orchard and set back out towards the palace, the prince pauses halfway across the curved wooden bridge that spans the ornamental fish pond, and settles his folded arms on top of the railings. "Now, I wouldn't mind you watching me so closely if I thought you were admiring my profile, Corporal," he says, his eyes fixed on the lazy rippling of the water below, "but, as I know you are not, I'm finding it a little disquieting, I'm afraid."  
  
Alasdair flushes in embarrassment. He thought he'd at least been more circumspect with his staring than the prince could ever seem to manage.  
  
"I'm sorry, sir," he says, propping himself against the railings next to the prince. "I'm just impressed by how easily you move given..." There's not a living being in sight who might overhear it – not a gardener or servant; even the fat golden fish that make the pond their home appear to have hidden themselves away for the moment – but Alasdair is still unwilling to give voice to the rest of his observation. It feels wrong to be the first to broach the subject of the prince's scars, especially as he has given no indication that he's comfortable with them being discussed outside the safe confines of his bedroom. "Well, you know."  
  
"I have no other choice," the prince says quietly. "What was done to me was a very private thing. Apart from you and I, only my father, my doctors, and the man who wielded the whip know what occurred, and I would prefer to keep it that way.  
  
"If word of it had ever reached Maman, either from my own lips, or those of my family or friends, I fear she would not have rested until she had broken my father utterly, even if she too were destroyed in the process. I did not want that any more than I want others' pity, which I'm sure I wouldn't be able to escape if they knew."  
  
"I don't pity you," Alasdair says. "As I said, I'm impressed. You saw for yourself that I can still be laid low by what happened to me, and when it was as fresh as yours is to you, sometimes the pain was unbearable. I certainly wasn't capable of sparring, or dancing for hours on end."  
  
"Because I've had to conceal it from the start, it's become second nature to me now. Every day, I was so deep in the pretence that it didn't hurt that I eventually managed to fool myself, too."  
  
"So you _are_ a better actor than you give yourself credit for," Alasdair says. "There's no harsher critic of such things than your own body, I imagine."  
  
The prince laughter sounds both surprised and delighted. "I hadn't thought of it that way, but you may be right." He arches his back in a stretch, and winces when his shoulders reach their highest point. Alasdair suspects that it's a show of trust for his benefit; another revelation of a truth usually kept well-hidden. "Now, we should return inside before the guild heads start baying for my blood.  
  
"After our meeting is concluded, I intend to ride out on my normal morning route. I give you free rein to use my chambers as you see fit in my absence. I'm sure you'll be able to find something there that can occupy you for a couple of hours."

 

 

* * *

 

  
  
  
Either the prince soft-shoed his way through his chambers with the consummate skill of a thief, or else Alasdair was far more engrossed in his reading than he realised, because he isn't aware of the other man's presence before he drapes himself across the back of the sitting room sofa and practically purrs in his ear, "What has managed to capture your interest so thoroughly, _mon caporal_?"  
  
"It's the first volume in that series you recommended to me," Alasdair says, angling his body in such a way that the prince's warm breath expels itself harmlessly into the air instead of stirring Alasdair's hair every time he exhales. "About the pirate captain? It's paced well enough that I can't seem to help turning the pages, but I'm not sure that I'm enjoying it.  
  
"You had given me to believe that there was fighting aplenty, but most of the action so far has taken place below decks. It's a wonder that the captain's bunk hasn't rattled itself to pieces, seeing as though he seems to shag just about anyone who gives him the time of day."  
  
"My apologies," the prince says, sounding not in the least bit contrite. "I'd forgotten that the books start out that way. You'll be glad to know that in the second, the pirate falls in love with an officer of the Imperial navy, and he swears off... casual affection thenceforth. In fact, I don't recall any further scenes of the sort you're objecting to, because the captain never dares reveal his heart to her, knowing he is the antithesis of all she believes in."  
  
"So he just pines after her for the next four volumes? Sounds a bit gloomy to me."  
  
"Really? I found it very romantic." The prince sighs airily. "But then you might still be tempted to continue if I tell you that the captain sublimates his frustrated desires into daring raids on Imperial vessels."  
  
Alasdair quickly flicks through to the end of the book, and notes that he has less than a hundred pages left to slog through. Not too great a hardship to endure for the promise of sea battles to come. "I am, sir," he says.  
  
"I'm glad," the prince says warmly. "I'd love to hear your opinions on the conclusion of the latest book, and if you always read this quickly, then we should be having that conversation before the week is out. I look forward to it."  
  
He rounds the end of the sofa, seats himself next to Alasdair, and proceeds to shuffles his weight for quite a while afterwards before he discovers a distribution that suits him. Then, he kicks off his boots and wriggles his stockinged toes around whilst groaning in such a distressed fashion that Alasdair is almost inclined to start worrying about his health.  
  
"Are you all right?" he asks.  
  
"My back might not be aching after dancing last night, but my feet certainly are." The prince gives Alasdair a rueful smile. "One should never wear new boots to a ball, Corporal."  
  
Alasdair doesn't bother to check the rolling of his eyes. "I'll try and bear that in mind for the next time I'm invited to attend one, sir."  
  
"See that you do." The prince tips his head back to rest amongst the sofa's plump cushions, his lips still holding a light curve of amusement. After a moment's silence he asks, "Did you have chance to write that note to your brothers that we discussed?"  
  
"I did," Alasdair says. "How do you usually deal with the post around here? Should I hand it to M. Jansen?"  
  
"Perhaps," the prince says. "But, having given the matter some consideration over the course of the morning, I've begun to think that it might be better if we call on your apothecary to deliver our message in person. I can't help but worry about the possibility that the letter might go astray at some point between your hand and theirs."  
  
"I could do that," Alasdair says, putting heavy emphasis on the pronoun, which the prince acknowledges with a frown of displeasure. "Seems sensible."  
  
"Excellent," the prince says unenthusiastically. "Now that's decided, there are three other letters that beg our attention."  
  
"Three?" Alasdair echoes, puzzled.  
  
He can account for one of that number definitively, thinks he might have a good idea regarding the identity of the second, but can't even begin to speculate what the third could be.  
  
"The first, of course, is the fake we left in the hollow tree," the prince says. "It's still there, and untouched, as far as I can tell. There was no new letter from the Seeker, but I would not have expected there to be."  
  
"Because the last one arrived only a few days ago?"  
  
"No, because I found this" – he pulls a small square of paper from his waistcoat, and presses into Alasdair's palm – "whilst I was tidying away the clothes I wore last night."  
  
When Alasdair unfolds the page, he immediately recognises that the Seeker's hand must have written the short, terse note it contains; one which informs the reader that the writer has lately become aware of the two poisoning victims' names, and is therefore suspending their correspondence until the perpetrator is apprehended, for fear of future incidents of a similar nature.    
  
"It was slipped into my pocket during the ball," the prince says, "just as the first one was. I wish I had drunk more sparingly not only for the sake of my stomach, but for the sake of my memory. Much of the evening is, unfortunately, little more than a blur."  
  
"Lord Mason could have done it. He had his..." Alasdair finds himself reluctant to describe how extensively the lord's hands had been wandering, mostly because he doesn't want to call the embarrassing details of that picture to the forefront of his mind again. "You were very close at times."  
  
The prince looks vaguely sickened, suggesting he remembers at least some of what passed between Lord Mason and himself. "I cannot believe such an odious man could act so altruistically. Was there anyone else?"  
  
"You danced with a woman, too. My friend, Amelia Jones, told me she was Lady Alice Churchfield."  
  
The prince considers this possibility for a little longer, but eventually shakes his head, all the same. "The Churchfields are one of the oldest, most well-respected families in Highgate, I'm told. It seems doubtful that one of their scions would become involved with an association like the Seekers."  
  
"I didn't see you in anyone else's company," Alasdair says, "but, then again, you seemed to spend most of the night avoiding me, so it's no wonder."  
  
He's surprised by how much that rankles, even now. It would have been a more productive use of his time if he'd stayed in his room and made an exhaustive inventory of the flowers embroidered on the curtains there.  
  
"I wish it hadn't had to come to that, especially as it transpires that there should have been a clear pair of eyes to keep track of my pockets," the prince says, sounding abashed. "Ah, I'm not sure that it would have benefit us to know their identity, in any case. I've never thought the Seeker to be a viable suspect. If they had wanted Spenser and Martinez dead, they could have disposed of them with official sanction, and neither you nor I nor anyone else in Deva would be any the wiser."  
  
"I agree," Alasdair says. "So, that's the first part of our chain covered, then; tree and Seeker. I'm guessing that's what the third letter is? Another fake one that we need to write for your friend to pick up." Alasdair's heart gives a slight lurch at the prospect. "It isn't going to involve us sitting in a field again, is it, sir?"  
  
"Don't worry, Corporal; there won't be any more fields," the prince says with a chuckle. "No, this letter, we can watch without leaving the palace."  
  
"The pick up point's _here_?" Alasdair asks dubiously. It seems like the worst possible place for such a thing, with so many servants bustling around the place at all hours, not to mention the quarter century of guards posted at the gates and doors. Hardly impregnable to a determined intruder, but he would have judged there to be far too great a risk of their being apprehended, all the same. "How the hell do they manage get in?"  
  
"They don't need to," the prince says. "They're already in, because my friend is also a member of my staff."

 

 


	38. Chapter 38

Alasdair's first impression of the prince had been that he was more facade than man; one whose every word and action was exaggerated or fabricated for effect.  
  
On closer acquaintance, his speech had lost the flowery inflections that marked their early conversations, and he had reined in the more ridiculously grandiloquent of his gestures, but, nonetheless, it seems he has not entirely lost his flair for the dramatic.  
  
Instead of offering further explanation for his pronouncement about his friend's identity, he falls silent, and as that silence stretches out beyond a natural pause to collect his thoughts, Alasdair begins to think it a deliberate attempt at heightening suspense, like the hush before music crescendos, or the quiet moments before a play's climactic act.  
  
Even that doesn't prevent his curiosity from piquing, however, and though it feels uncomfortably like he's rewarding the prince's performance, eventually he can't he can't help but ask, "So, are you going to tell me who they are?"  
  
If his capitulation gratifies the prince in any way, it's not reflected in his countenance, and that leads Alasdair to believe that he could have misjudged the man's motives, after all.  
  
"If it were solely my secret, I would share it with you in an instant," the prince says. "But as another man's safety is at stake, I'm sure you can understand my reluctance to do so. The danger my friend faces from this is far greater than my own, as he can't claim even the scant protection of royal blood."  
  
"I _do_ understand," Alasdair says, "though I'm afraid I can't see how we can continue our investigation if I don't have at least some idea of who this man is. Otherwise all I have to go on is your word that he wouldn't betray you, or the people you're intent on helping, and _you've_ got to understand that that's a lot to take on trust.  
  
"I'm sorry, but I don't think I can. The Seeker's life is in just as much danger, no doubt, and yet we set out to spy on them for Spenser and Martinez's sake. I can't spare your friend the same scrutiny in good conscience. He's still a suspect as far as I'm concerned."  
  
The prince's answering nod is small and stiff, but undeniably assenting. "If it transpires that he's played some part in the poisonings, then, you must... You must not hesitate to expose that and treat him as you would any other criminal. But if he's innocent of wrongdoing, then, please, I beg of you, Corporal, forget everything that I'm about to tell you. Pretend that you never heard it."  
  
He sounds as desperate as if he was pleading for his own life.  
  
"I was already intending on doing so, sir," Alasdair reassures him. "If it doesn't pertain directly to the attacks, then I'm certainly not going to put it in any of my reports. I wouldn't want you or your friend or the Seeker to get yourselves into hot water just for helping folks escape from... whatever the fuck it is the Empire has in store for them."  
  
The prince gives him a weak smile that doesn't quite reach his eyes. "Unless you can see no other way around it, I would prefer it if you didn't mention my friend to your captain at all," he says. "He has a bounty on his head quite apart from his work with me."  
  
"A bounty?" Alasdair's first thought is that the prince might have got himself tangled up with one of the smugglers who operate Belowstreets, running whisky out over the border from Caledonia. Likely there's more than one of them who'd be prepared to transport fugitives in the opposite direction, given enough coin. "And you trust this man? What in the hells did he do?"  
  
"Nothing I would consider worth hanging him for, Corporal," the prince says, his voice sharpening, "and yet that is precisely what would happen if he was ever discovered here. Desertion from the Imperial army is a capital offence, even two years after the fact."  
  
"Your centurion?" Alasdair guesses, which earns him another barely-there nod.  
  
"He fled to Caledonia after his escape, and tried to build a new life for himself there. Perhaps it was foolish of us, given how open it left us to the risk of discovery, but we exchanged the occasional letter, regardless.  
  
"In them, he told me how much he missed his family and that he was often on the verge of starvation most of the time, because he couldn't speak the Caledonian tongue with sufficient fluency to find steady work. It was clear that he was incredibly unhappy about his situation, although he never said it in so many words.  
  
"When I was appointed governor, I saw my opportunity to improve his lot. I extended an offer of employment to both him and his sisters, which all three readily accepted.  
  
"It was for their benefit as much as my own that I chose to reside in Deva rather than Eboracum. The capital is swarming with Imperial agents and soldiers, and even though my centurion shaved his beard, coloured his hair and changed his name before he came south again, the chance that he would be recognised there was still far too great. Relative anonymity is far easier for both of us in Deva."  
  
"Is M. Jansen your centurion?"  
   
Unlike his first, this conjecture of Alasdair's lands wide of its mark, judging by the prince's derisive snort. "He is not. Whatever gave you that idea, Corporal?"  
  
"Well, I got the impression he might have served in the military, given his bearing, and he seems very... solicitous of you, so..." Alasdair's words, already stumbling in the face of the prince's evident amusement at his suggestion, slowly grind to a halt, and he can only finish with a shrug.  
  
"He's solicitous inasmuch as he wishes for my continued good health so I can continue performing my duties properly, and no more," the prince says. "He hasn't shown the slightest interest in me beyond that.  
  
"I first met the man when he attended his interview to become my secretary; a role he had previously filled for Lord Churchfield. If he was a soldier before that, he made no mention of it then, nor has he since."  
  
"So, who _is_ your centurion, then?" Alasdair asks.  
  
"You've never met before, so his name would be meaningless to you," the prince says quickly, and to Alasdair's ear, a little dismissively. "Who he is to me is all you really need to know. I saved his life, so he thinks he now owes it to me, no matter how many times I tell him that that debt was discharged long ago. He would never be disloyal to me."  
  
Which makes sense, and doubtless explains why the prince felt he could rely on him to safely become part of his rescue efforts, but for his own part, Alasdair's unwilling to acquit the erstwhile centurion of all suspicion simply on the prince's testimony.  
  
"If he's innocent, then I couldn't care less what he's called," he says. "But I'm not just going to accept that he is just on your say so, I need proper proof and real evidence first. We write the fake letter as we discussed, and we _both_ watch it, just like we did the last. If your centurion doesn't do anything shifty with it, then you can take his name to the grave as far as I'm concerned."  
  
The prince regards him levelly for a time, then says just as steadily, "That sounds acceptable, Corporal."  
  
"I'm glad to hear it, sir," Alasdair replies in kind, firmly shaking the hand that the prince proffers to seal their agreement.  
  
The prince hurriedly breaks their clasp and then sinks back amongst the sofa's cushions with a burst of breathy laughter. "You now know more of my secrets than ay other person, and yet we're still so formal with one another," he says. "Still 'sir' and 'corporal' like we were on the day we met."  
  
This _again_? The prince is about as tenacious with it as he had once been in his attempts to puzzle out Alasdair's romantic inclinations.  
  
"If anything, we should be _more_ formal than we are," he says. "I'm your servant now, after all."  
  
"That you've had to take on that title is one of the few things I regret about our current arrangement," the prince says. "I don't expect you to... serve me in that capacity when we're alone, though. I'd hoped that, when it's just the two of us, we might simply be friends."  
  
Alasdair desperately searches the man's face for some sign that his last remark was made in jest, but to his astonishment, he doesn't discover any "We're never going to be friends, sir," he says, even though he shouldn't need to; even though it should be as obvious to the prince as it is to him.  
  
The man's sincerity suggests that he might require a reminder, however.  
  
"Whyever not?" The prince sounds so dismayed that Alasdair could almost be fooled into thinking that the possibility had in fact never crossed his mind.  
  
"How could we be?" Alasdair counters, as gently as he can in case the prince truly has been deluding himself to the contrary. "Even if we were ever able to talk as though we were true equals, what will that matter once our fortnight is up? I can't imagine that we'd be able to contrive a reason for our paths to cross outside my work, and I'd be written up if I didn't bow and 'sir' you then.  
  
"You couldn't invite me to take dinner with you or to another ball any more than I could invite you to have a drink with me in my local pub. People in our positions are never friends, sir. I imagine it's no less difficult than them being lovers like you said, sir."  
  
Although the prince looks thoughtful enough, logic clearly holds no sway over him regardless, as he soon says, "I'm not certain that I believe that, Corporal, and even if I did, that wouldn't change the fact that we're _friendly_ , if nothing else. You can't deny that, surely?"  
  
"What does it matter, either way?" Alasdair equivocates, because lies never come easily to him – a failing that he's always called bluntness to assuage it in his own mind – and saying that he dislikes the prince as much as he ever did would be no more truthful than the reverse. It's a surprising realisation, minted in the moment that he gives the matter consideration, but it doesn't make them friends, all the same.  
  
"Because I like to be on first name terms with those I'm friendly with," the prince says, flashing Alasdair a self-satisfied smile.  
  
Alasdair groans softly. "You're not going to stop harping on about this until I give in, are you, sir?" The prospect of eleven more days living under the threat of yet another iteration of this same argument is so wearying to contemplate, that he tires of it before it's begun. He's not even sure that he has a reason to keep fighting it, anyway, save for his own bloody-mindedness. "For fuck's sake," he growls, "you can call me Alasdair if it means that much to you."  
  
The prince's smile grows wide enough that his dimples make a reappearance. "It does. Thank you, Alasdair." He pronounces the name so carefully that its intonations are more Brittonic than Gallian. "And you can call me Francis in return, of course."  
  
"Are you sure that's a good idea? Your butler would probably throw me out on my ear if he heard that, for one."  
  
"And Lovino would doubtless call for you to be placed in the stocks," the prince says, chuckling. "In public, everything will have to be as it was before. We shall be Alasdair and Francis only in private."  
  
The honeyed timbre of his voice is very similar to the tone he'd affected when he'd been attempting to sweet-talk the captain, but as he seems to have gained everything he could possibly want from their conversation, Alasdair can't imagine why he'd be using it now.  
  
And, he suddenly decides, he doesn't want to find out. He's granted quite enough concessions for one day.  
  
"Right," he says, getting to his feet so abruptly that it startles the prince out of adding whatever fresh demand his parting lips had betrayed he was poised to make. "Let's go and get this letter written, then, before you have chance to change your mind about it."

 

 


	39. Chapter 39

By the time the prince sits down at his desk, Alasdair is already regretting having given him permission to use his first name.  
  
The man has appended it to every damn sentence he's uttered since – 'Shall we retire to my bedroom, Alasdair?', 'Could you pass me that paper, Alasdair?', and once just 'Alasdair,' for no better reason, it seemed, than the sheer novelty of being able to say it – as though it's now replaced the full stop in his lexicon and must be pressed into service to round out his every thought.  
  
The endless repetition is annoying enough, but in his haste to curtail future arguments, Alasdair hadn't paused to consider how grating hearing the name itself would be. Even when he was a child, no-one had ever really used it save for Ma and Da, and only then as part of the lengthier 'Alasdair-James-Kirkland', said in a single breath and accompanied by admonishments about such things as unmade beds, torn shirts, or Arthur straggling home drenched and covered in duckweed.  
  
Therefore, when the prince urges him to, "Please, pull up a chair, Alasdair," he is quick to say, "I've changed my mind. I'd rather you didn't call me that."  
  
And, because the prince's expression after hearing that suggests that Alasdair might as well have reached into his chest and clenched his hand around his heart, he is even quicker to add, "Call me Aly. Everyone else does."  
  
The prince repeats the name with even more evident relish than the first time he'd spoken 'Alasdair'. He lingers over the 'l' in particular, the tip of his tongue pressed against his top lip for an obscenely long time.  
  
"Right," Alasdair says, swiftly heading towards the brocaded armchair that is pulled up close to the side of the prince's bed once more. "Try not to wear that one out, too."  
  
The prince laughs breathily. "I will."  
  
The sentence's conclusion remains unadorned by anything save punctuation, which Alasdair chooses to consider a small triumph.  
  
When he returns with the chair, the prince shuffles his own as far to the right as it will go, but, even so, it's a tight squeeze to fit both beneath the desk. Whilst Alasdair struggles to wedge himself into place, he elbows the prince in the shoulder at least once and their knees bang together several times before the prince finally grows tired of the mistreatment, drawing his legs up underneath him and twisting his body aside.  
  
Perched now on the very edge of his seat, he smooths out the sheets of paper Alasdair had brought him and picks up his pen. It hovers, poised above them, for a moment, but then he sighs and sets it down again without writing a word.  
  
Instead, he bestows a slightly arch smile on Alasdair, and says, "I hope you understand that regardless of our current agreement on the naming matter, the prohibition on 'Fran' still stands."  
  
The thought hadn't so much as crossed Alasdair's mind. "You're not fond of nicknames when it comes to yourself, I take it."  
  
"I can't say I've ever been given one." The prince lifts one shoulder in a small shrug. "Maman did have a pet name for me when I was a child, but she hasn't called me by it in years."  
  
Taking into account how the prince's face pinks at the memory, Alasdair thinks he could have a fairly good guess at what that pet name could have been. "It was ' _mon petit chou_ ', or something like, wasn't it?" he asks.  
  
"Something like," the prince says, his flush deepening. "As I have no intention of ever asking you to use it, I hope you'll forgive me for not wanting to share it, even with you."  
  
More embarrassing than being his ma's little cabbage, then. The possibility rouses Alasdair's curiosity, but as the prince's skin looks as if it might just burst into flames if it becomes any more heated, he decides not to press the issue.  
  
"I presume you would usually write two letters at this juncture," he says, pretending a complete loss of interest in the entire subject of names, pet or otherwise. "One for your friend, and the other for whatever poor sod's going to have their life ripped out from under them."  
  
The prince stares at him blankly for a while, brow creased, as though he hasn't quite comprehended anything Alasdair's just said to him. Eventually, however, he gives a short cough and says, "I would, but there seems little point in writing the second this time, given that our 'poor sod' is entirely fictitious."  
  
"I don't know," Alasdair says. "It seems to me that this time should be the same as all the others. Tell me exactly what happens from the moment you pick up one of the Seeker's letters."  
  
The creases multiply as the prince's gaze goes thoughtful and distant. "Well, M. Jansen would normally be awaiting my return in the stables – despite being told on numerous occasions that I would prefer to wash and change before beginning our morning meeting – so the letter remains on my person until I have chance to return to my chambers.  
  
"I compose my own letters here, burn the Seeker's, and lock the two I have written in the drawer of this desk, where they stay until I just before I set out on that day's ride, when I take them to the designated pick-up point. My friend will retrieve them, keep the letter meant for him, and give the other to his sister.  
  
"The two of them are allowed more personal leave than most of the other servants, as they concocted a story about a sick family member in town, but in actuality she will use her allocation of that time to deliver that second letter to its intended recipient."  
  
The prince's eyes sharpen again, and he looks at Alasdair expectantly. Quite what he expects is unclear, but what he deserves is some hard questions regarding his good sense.  
  
Despite the prince's earlier adamance that his chain of communications is secure, by Alasdair's reckoning there are at least three more weak spots than he had already admitted to.  
  
Not least: "So, these letters of yours are just sat here in your desk, unprotected, even if you were to, say, go out dancing for the night, or take a trip to Old Town to distract honest guards from their duty all afternoon?"  
  
"It makes no odds, Aly. The drawer is locked. My bedchamber, too, when I'm absent from it."  
  
"And no-one else has the keys?"  
  
"My butler, I suppose, has a copy of the bedchamber key, but certainly not the desk's. I have the only copy of that."  
  
At a glance, Alasdair can tell that it doesn't much matter either way where the desk key is kept. The drawer has the sort of lock that could be picked in seconds by a talented amateur, and even an untalented one would be able to pop it open with a bit of determined jiggling and a touch of force.  
  
"Where does the butler store his keys? Could someone else have got hold of them?"  
  
"Whether they could or not is immaterial," the prince says. "As I told you before, besides you and I, nobody is permitted to enter this room."  
  
He speaks with the rock-solid confidence of a man habituated to having his every order – and likely every whim – obeyed. To Alasdair, who is far more used to receiving commands than giving them, his belief seems hopelessly naive.  
  
"Now, I'll grant you that the servants probably wouldn't dare disobey you on that score, for fear of their jobs, but what about your cousins, or your brother or sister? I've told Mikey time and again that he's to keep out of my room, but I know that he goes in there all the same if he happens to run out of books to read, or he's skiving off work and doesn't want Dyl to find him. Families are apt to take liberties with one another that no-one else would."  
  
"Not mine," the prince says with a firmness which signals that he considers the topic closed for discussion.  
  
As Alasdair barely knows the prince's family, and has seen very little of its dynamics, he cannot bring himself to be quite so trusting. "Just to put my mind at ease," he says accordingly, "how would you feel about sticking a hair over the edge of the drawer ? The hair'd get broken if anyone tried peek inside, so we'd know if anyone had been poking around in here whilst we're out. I read about in a book once; seemed to do the trick in that, at least."  
  
"Was that the one about the monk who was trying track down his abbot's murderer?" asks the prince, who sounds far too eager to latch onto this potential literary tangent. Presumably, even this small concession to the possibility that his bedchamber is not the inviolate sanctuary he'd assumed is too uncomfortable for him to easily entertain. "I thought it started out well, but the ending was disappointing. I worked out the culprit long before the monk did, and it was so irritating to see him bumbling around, ignoring what was right under his nose."  
  
"Be that as it may, sir, but—"  
  
"Francis," the prince corrects, tutting admonishingly.  
  
Alasdair grinds down his teeth in frustration and then grits out, "Francis, you might well be right, but I want to _see_ that, in just the same way I want to see for myself that your friend's innocent of any blame in this."  
  
The prince's silence bespeaks acceptance, though his accompanying frown implies it is only grudgingly given.  
  
"Now, obviously it would be better if we could stay here all afternoon, hoping to catch anyone if they did happen to try and sneak in, but seeing as though this whole bloody palace seems to watch your every move like a hawk, no doubt word would get around that you hadn't left your chambers. No-one would chance their luck, then, once they heard that.  
  
"I think it's best that we do every step of this exactly as you normally would, just so we don't arouse anyone's suspicions. We _want_ them to take the bait we're setting, after all. Granted, we'd have no way of knowing the intruder's identity this way, but we'd know there was one, and we'd know who it _couldn't_ be."  
  
Astonishingly, the prince's countenance brightens, and he offers Alasdair a sunny grin. " _This_ is why I couldn't do this alone, no matter how much I wished to," he says. "I'm far too close to the player's in all of this, and thus far too willing to listen to my heart rather than my head. But you have none of my qualms about doing what needs to be done, and _that's_ why I knew I had to have you here with me, Aly."  
  
With that, he picks up his pen again, and hurriedly scrawls out a couple of lines across the topmost sheet of paper in front of him. Then, he pauses, and inclines his head towards the huge map tacked up on the wall beside him.  
  
"I commissioned this from a cartographer in Eastgate as soon as I knew I was going to make my home here," he says. "None of the maps of Deva I had access to in Gallia were particularly thorough, and I wanted to familiarise myself with the town and its surroundings before I arrived.  
  
"Despite the steep price she quoted me, I hadn't expected it to be quite _this_ detailed, but that proved very useful once I began to arrange these rescue missions."  
  
He stretches up and places one long, slender finger against the map at the very centre of the broad circle that illustrates Old Town's outer walls. "I always choose a location in Old Town, as it's the most densely populated part of Deva. It's much easier for someone to pass unnoticed if they're simply one more face in a crowd." He slides his finger across the thick paper until it reaches the long, straight column of Old Town's main road. "Off King Llewellyn's Way, as it's the busiest thoroughfare." Finally, he traces the thin, twisting line of a side street with his nail. "And then down the narrowest pathway I can find, to minimise the risk that there will be any witnesses to the actual rendezvous with my friend."  
  
Alasdair nods, because his reasoning seems solid enough, but when he leans in to take a closer look at the map himself, his eyes are drawn to the opposite end of King Llewellyn's way than the one the prince has marked with his touch.  
  
"This time," he says, stretching one arm out over the prince's shoulder and pointing his own finger to draw his attention upwards, "I think you should pick a spot closer to Westfield Road."  
  
The prince has gone very still, his body held stiff and tight, and his voice is even tighter. "Why?"  
  
"Gabs' clinic's on Westfield Road. If we have to follow this all through to the end, then I'm going to have to lie in wait at whatever location we choose, because that'll be our last chance to catch the poisoner, if everything works out as it did the last two times."  
  
"Aly." The name is barely more than a long, quivering breath. "I hadn't thought... I couldn't possibly ask you to put yourself in that sort of danger."  
  
"Well, I don't want to deprive you. If you've got your heart on the idea of doing it yourself, then I won't stand in your way," Alasdair says, forcing himself to chuckle even though it's a piss poor attempt at levity.  
  
"I should do it myself," the prince says. "And I _will_."  
  
He sounds utterly convinced of the truth of that; completely determined. Alasdair really can't comprehend why he continues to believe that he isn't brave.  
  
Although the idea is a tempting one to the small part of Alasdair himself that sometimes lacks for courage, he nevertheless says, "You _can't_. I know I joked about it not mattering before, but can you imagine the uproar if an Imperial Governor got himself killed or injured here? They'd tear the town apart looking for your attacker, Francis. I'm just a guard, and they've got plenty of those. The Empire's not going to give a shit if the same thing happens to me."  
  
Although the prince protests that of course they'd give a shit, and of course Alasdair's not 'just a guard', he doesn't repeat his assertion that he should take Alasdair's place, which suggests that he understands full well that Alasdair's right and they have no other option.  
  
He might be resigned to it, but, judging by the despondent bow of his head, he's still deeply unhappy about the prospect.  
  
Alasdair pulls back his outstretched arm, and quickly pats one of the prince's slumped shoulders in a clumsy attempt at reassurance before sitting straight and square in his chair again. "Look, if we manage to unearth the poisoner with one of these letters, then it won't have to come to that, will it?"  
  
"Throughout this, I've never once thought I might be mistaken," the prince says in a slightly strangled tone. "Never once suspected anyone here. But when you put it that way, Aly? I could almost start hoping that we will find them without leaving this palace, after all."

 

 


	40. Chapter 40

After the two letters have been locked in the desk drawer, the prince plucks a single strand of hair from the crown of his head and secures it carefully around the handles of the drawers above and below, his tongue's tip making a brief reappearance, pressed against his bottom lip as he fumbles and grumbles his way through the delicate task of securing the almost-invisible thread with tiny knots at each end.  
  
"There, that will have to do," he says with a great deal more relief than satisfaction once the second has finally been tied tightly enough that it doesn't immediately slither loose the instant he lets go of it. "I can't help but think that our trap could be quite easily circumvented by anyone with a quick eye and careful hands, though. I wish there was something else we could do. Something with a little more subtlety."  
  
There are wards that can be set on locks which scream out an alarm when they are broken, others which would coat the perpetrator's fingers with an indelible stain, or burn them, or freeze them in place. In his youth, Alasdair had drawn them in chalk, and flame, and his own blood on countless occasions down in the cellar beneath the apothecary, surrounded by the tattered, dusty tomes that had been passed down through generations of his ma's family, the rotten egg stink of spent magic hanging heavy in the damp air.  
  
The prince's gaze does not stray towards him, though, and for all that his words sound like a leading statement, his tone suggests nothing but amorphous frustration at their situation. The prospect that Alasdair might know of such things has not occurred to the prince, it seems, and Alasdair is profoundly glad of it. Glad that he doesn't have to pretend ignorance, but even more so that he won't be forced to make the inevitable decision not to apply the knowledge he does have.  
  
He's willing to weather the complete upheaval of his own life for the sake of this investigation, but the risk of his attracting the notice of the Seekers, and throwing himself upon the prince's still untested mercy, is just too great.  
  
"It worked well enough for the monk," he says, giving the prince's shoulder an encouraging nudge with his own when his dolorous expression fails to lift with the reassurance. "He caught the murderer in the end."  
  
"Which was more thanks to luck than sound judgement or skill, if I remember correctly. And we'll have to trust our own luck, and hope that, if we do have an intruder, they don't share our taste in literature and thus might not think to look out for such things." The prince hooks the tip of one finger beneath the taut hair and tugs at it lightly, testing its hold. Even though it neither snaps or pulls free, he still sighs deeply and with evident dissatisfaction. "I've left my letters here so many times and simply walked away without giving them a second thought, but I find myself reluctant to leave now you've made me realise just how unforgivably careless I've been with them." He smiles ruefully. "I suppose you would have been sensible enough to keep them with you at all times, if you were in my place."  
  
"In your place, I probably wouldn't have written them at all," Alasdair says. "The letter to the Seeker's target, I can understand, but why write one to your friend? Couldn't you just _tell_ him what he needs to know? There'd have been a lot less chance of the information going astray that way, especially if he's as trustworthy as you insist he is."  
  
"If it were possible, of course I would have done, but he works as one of my _gardeners_. Believe me, it's far safer for us to communicate in writing. Tongues would be wagging from here to Eboracum if I happened to be seen engaged in conversation with one of my servants other than M. Jansen, my head cook, or butler."  
  
"Or your personal guard," Alasdair says with a grin that the prince does not return.  
  
"Even my personal guard, Aly," he says gravely. "I would be surprised if our conduct at Lady Foster's ball _wasn't_ the prime subject of the more salacious kind of gossip in damn near every manor in Highgate today."  
  
Alasdair cannot recall a single instance of any behaviour on either his or the prince's part that night which could be in any way construed as amorous by even the dirtiest of minds, but as his own neighbours appear to have dreamt up an entire affair for the two of them based solely upon a single shared carriage ride, he supposes it's not exactly beyond the bounds of possibility.  
  
"And are they gossiping about you and Art, too?" Alasdair asks. "Last time we spoke, he told me that you had a very productive conversation with him about wages. Apparently, it must have touched him very deeply, because he thinks the sun shines out of your arse, now. It's a wonder I haven't heard rumours that the two of you are half way down the aisle if everyone's as eager to pair you up with any person you exchange a few words with as you say."  
  
The prince snorts inelegantly. "He chose his timing well, and managed to catch me completely alone whilst I was out in the gardens, inspecting the grotto. And I wouldn't call it a conversation so much as being issued a set of demands.  
  
"He's very... forceful, your brother, isn't he? I'd never been talked to in that way by a servant before, and I was so taken aback that I capitulated to him without question."  
  
"Well, I'm sure I don't really need to tell you at this late stage, but none of us Kirklands are cut out to be decent servants, I'm afraid," Alasdair says without a hint of apology. "Da taught us that we should never be in awe of a title, because they're nothing more than ink, paper and fancy shields at the end of the day. He didn't have much respect left for the nobility by the time he and Ma got married."  
  
"And yet you've mentioned that he came from that same nobility himself," the prince says, raising an interrogative eyebrow.  
  
"Aye, my grandfather was an earl for all of about six months after his da died, but that particular bit of ink and paper got sold to try and pay off the debts he inherited along with the estate. The manor went soon after, to pay for the remainder and buy a house in Eastgate. _That_ went soon enough to fund another year's schooling in Durolipons for Da.  
  
"And through it all, not a one of those grand lords and ladies that had called Da or his parents their friends lifted a finger to help them, and then when they ended up in Old Town because Da still couldn't afford to stay on through university and set himself up as a lawyer as he'd banked on, every single one of them turned up their noses at him if they passed him on the street, as though he was a perfect fucking stranger to them.  
  
"He always said that there was a huge gulf between nobility of title and nobility of spirit, and we should never let ourselves get so dazzled by the former that we forgot that."  
  
The prince stares at Alasdair wide-eyed and unblinking for a moment, before saying in a wondering tone, "So you would have been an earl, then, had your family's fortunes not taken the downturn they did?"  
  
"Naw, Cait would have beaten me to that by a full twenty minutes. I wouldn't have been anything at all."  
  
The prince twists aside from Alasdair abruptly, and makes what looks to be an indiscriminate grab for the first thing at hand on his desk, which happens to be a burnished silver letter opener glistening with inlaid gold. He spins it over and over between his thumb and forefinger, seemingly becoming mesmerised by the streaks of light which flicker across its surface given how fully it commands his attention.  
  
After a minute or so, he stirs himself enough to say, "Still..."  
  
But he word is half formed, and trails away into nothing but a hitched breath afterwards. What he had meant to add is loud as a clarion, nevertheless.  
  
"Still, yes, I would have been a rich man living in a big house on a good street, with all the time and money in the world to attend balls and parties and the fucking opera," Alasdair snarls out instinctively in answer to that unspoken call. "And, yes, we likely could have been friends in that case, though probably not more, even so. I doubt I would have been different enough for _that_."  
  
The letter opener stills in the prince's hand, and he grimaces, looking vaguely sickened. "That was uncalled for, Aly," he says, his voice taut and thrumming with what sounds to be barely controlled anger. "It hadn't even crossed my mind, I was simply wondering how best to commiserate with you without making you think I pitied your situation in any way. Perhaps I shouldn't pause to consider such things in the future, though, because you seem to read far more ungracious thoughts into my silences than I could ever betray with any ill-chosen words of my own."  
  
His face has grown pale and drawn, body trembling; more truly shaken than Alasdair has ever seen him before, and guilt stabs him hard and bruising beneath his breastbone.  
  
"I'm the one that should have thought before I spoke," he says, reaching one hand out towards the prince placatingly, though he can't quite bring himself to do in deliberation what he had done without consideration earlier and actually touch the man. "As I told you this morning, it's something I don't do as often as I should.  
  
"You just... hit a nerve, and I lashed out on reflex. I'm sorry, si– Francis."  
  
The harsh line of the prince's mouth softens a little. "I never would have guessed that you'd rue the loss of a title. You certainly don't seem to put much stock in them."  
  
"I couldn't give a shit if we should have been earls, dukes, or even fucking princes. It's..."  
  
Alasdair can't bring himself to finish, because both his ma and da had reminded him time and again that it was crass to talk about such things, and, regardless, it's definitely not something he wants to discuss with the prince, whom he supposes has never had to chose between paying for coal and lamp oil, or gone to bed hungry, no matter all of the other shit that has been dumped into his otherwise rarefied life.  
  
He doesn't suppose that his life would have been perfect if his feckless forebears had managed to keep their hands on at least a fraction of the Kirkland estate, but it sure as hell would have made a lot of things much easier to bear. Money, he's found, usually does  
  
Whether or not the prince guesses at the real reason for Alasdair's testiness, he chooses not to comment further on it, either way. Instead, he lets his smile expand, and then turns back towards Alasdair to say, "If we want to return from Old Town in time for dinner, I suggest we set out without further delay. I'll call for the carriage straight away."  
  
Alasdair sighs. It seems churlish to start an argument with the prince when they've only just managed to avoid another, but his insistence on trying to ferry Alasdair back and forth to the apothecary has grown beyond tiresome.  
  
Given that he's successfully worn down Alasdair's defences on both the matter of his name and his romantic prospects using the same method, however, Alasdair supposes he can't blame the man for his persistence in this, too.  
  
When he opens his mouth to trot out yet another – likely futile – protest, however, the prince holds up a quelling finger and shakes his head.  
  
"I told my sister earlier that I had every intention of paying a call on poor Mrs Spenser this afternoon, and I can hardly be expected to set out into the poisoner's territory without my personal guard, can I, Corporal? I'm sure you want to check on your progress yourself, too, and, as you'll be so close to your family there, no-one would blame you for slipping out for a moment or two to call in on them."  
  
He appears incredibly pleased with himself for constructing this particular subterfuge. As Gabriella wouldn't even think to question him leaving for the apothecary, Alasdair isn't entirely certain who it's intended to fool.  
  
Perhaps it's Alasdair himself, because the prince seems bound and determined to try and coddle him whenever he has the slightest reason to.

Alasdair doesn't exactly relish the thought of making the long slog into Old Town after his late night and rude, early awakening that morning, and his second visit to Mrs Spenser is overdue besides, so he decides to allow the prince the small satisfaction of thinking the wool has been pulled over his eyes.  
  
"Of course not, sir," he says. "I'll go and fetch my coat."

 

 


	41. Chapter 41

Lili welcomes the prince into the clinic with a bow, followed by a curtsey, and then, after a short pause in which her face crimsons and her mouth takes on the tense pinch of one afflicted by the agony of indecision, a second bow.  
  
She lifts her gaze towards the prince's face afterwards, but is too diffident to complete the journey his eyes, and, as a consequence, when she does eventually gather her courage to speak, her words are directed to a point somewhere in the region of his collarbone.  
  
"Your... Your Highness, I... Gab— Healer Carriedo is... Please wait here, and I'll go and fetch her!"  
  
In her haste to depart, she turns so hurriedly that the buckles of her shoes tangle in the trailing folds of her overlong apprentice robes, sending her stumbling. The threat of the steadying hand the prince looks poised to set at her elbow seems to serve better than the panicked outstretching of her arms in helping her find her balance again, and she mumbles something at the prince that sounds more abundant in mortification than gratitude before scurrying off in the direction of the ward room.  
  
"That went better than the last time we met," the prince says dryly. "She didn't dare talk to me at all, then. Do I really look so terrifying, Corporal?"  
  
"Aye, you're an ogre," Alasdair says, rolling his eyes heavenwards. "Sir, you've got to understand that, before you got here, the closest thing we had to a local dignitary who would step foot around these parts was the mayor, and despite his illustrious lineage and the entire alphabet of letters he's got after his name, the man's so dim he likely wouldn't understand an insult even after you sat him down and explained it to him in words of no more than one syllable. Yet we hear all these stories coming out of Roma, Gallia and the like that royals like yourself challenge people to duels for not laughing at their jokes, have them put in stocks for not genuflecting humbly enough, and basically take offence at the slightest thing. You can't expect people not to be worried that you might behave the same way.  
  
"Hells, you threatened to have me flogged for asking if I could use your given name, so, by rights, I should be scared of you, too."  
  
"I merely cautioned you that someone in my position _could_ do it, if they felt so inclined." The prince's voice drops to a whisper. "I would never give the order for anyone to be punished in _that_ way. You know I wouldn't."  
  
"I know that _now_ , but—"  
  
"This is fortuitous," Gabriella calls out as she emerges through the treatment room door and approaches them. "Mrs Spenser's awake and coherent at last, and one of the first things she asked for was to talk with the guards. I was going to send a note to Lu, but you've saved me the effort of finishing it, and Lili the trip to deliver. Your timing couldn't be better."  
  
Given how close to death Mrs Spenser had been when they found her, crumpled and alone in that alleyway, Alasdair hadn't allowed himself to hope for this outcome, and his disbelief, satisfaction and happiness at Gabriella's news bubble up into a desperate burst of laughter that he can't quell, no matter how inappropriate it might be to the situation. The broad grins that Gabriella and the prince exchange suggest that neither of them feel inclined to censure him for it, though.  
  
"Well," he says after a long, deep breath to steady himself, "I don't have my notebook with me, but I'm sure I could repurpose that letter you were writing to the captain, if you don't mind, Gabs."  
  
"Healer Carriedo, I wonder if I might avail myself of your parlour again whilst the corporal is talking to your patient?" the prince asks before Gabriella has chance to pass comment. "I imagine my presence might serve as something as a distraction, and I would hate for it to interfere with his work."  
  
It's certainly a novel concern for the man, given his inability to keep from interfering with Alasdair's work at every other conceivable juncture of the investigation, but his rapid blinking and the quirking of his eyebrows suggest that he's trying to convey some sort of explanation in that code they have yet to get around to devising despite their misunderstandings at the ball. Lacking any clear key for decrypting the silent message, Alasdair can only rely on his own meagre understanding of the workings of the prince's mind, and thus loosely decodes it as, 'given why she was in Old Town, she'd never talk as freely with me there, knowing that I might rush off and report every word she said directly to the Emperor'.  
  
This entirely hypothetical translation seems eminently sensible to Alasdair, so he gives the prince a nod of approval, which earns him a smile which seems to be tinged with unearned triumph in their shared understanding in return.  
  
"Please, make yourself comfortable, sir," Gabriella says, bowing swiftly. "I'll send Lili to fetch you once Aly's finished his interview."  
  
The instant the prince has disappeared from view, she looks Alasdair up and down with an air of great disappointment.  
  
Alasdair assumes that she's discovered that, on second viewing, the shirt she bought him – although freshly washed and pressed in the palace laundry rooms – doesn't actually suit him very well, after all, but whilst that thought is a little disheartening, it's a veritable balm to his soul compared to the truth she eventually pronounces.  
  
"I was hoping you'd be wearing your kilt."  
  
"And I was hoping the kilt could stay a secret kept between me, the prince, and damn near all of Highgate." Alasdair groans. "Did Jones tell you about it?"  
  
In which case, doubtless every guard in town has already had a good laugh at his expense about it. The ribbing will likely follow him through his entire career, and there'll be jokes about it in his future captain's speech at his retirement, thirty years hence. For a brief, desperate moment, he contemplates asking the prince if he can stay on as his personal guard after his fortnight is up.  
  
Gabriella shakes her head. "No, Alaina."  
  
Which is just as much baffling as it is a reprieve. "Really? Why on earth would you be talking to her?"  
  
"Granted, you may not have noticed, but I do on occasion like to wear something other than my robes," Gabriella says. "Isabelle recommended Alaina to me after old Mr Prendergast retired, and I buy most of my clothes from her now. She's expensive, but worth it; her work's exquisite. That shirt you're wearing is one of hers, you know."  
  
Alasdair hadn't known, though he wishes he had, as the excessively detailed embroidery upon it might have forewarned him not to expect a simple uniform from her, though even that, in fairness, probably could not have presaged her desire for him to be flashing his knees to all and sundry.  
  
"You missed your chance on the kilt, Gabs," he says. "Once was enough. Apparently, the prince has already put in an order with Mlle. Labelle for some trousers to replace it."  
  
"Which she's working on very unenthusiastically, I imagine," Gabriella says, chuckling. "She told me that, as soon as she as she saw you, she couldn't picture you wearing anything other than that kilt."

Alasdair doesn't even want to contemplate what detail of his person might have inspired her to that particular conclusion, and is very glad of the very pressing matter of his interview as an excuse to steer Gabriella away from elaborating and towards the ward and Mrs Spenser.

 

 

* * *

 

  
  
As Helen Spenser is so pale and still that she almost seems to have disappeared between the crisp, creamy sheets which cover her sick bed, Alasdair's attention is more immediately drawn to the woman sitting beside it, who he presumes is Dr Alice Spenser.  
  
Her entire body is bowed forward, her back curved and her head drooped down so low that it's almost touching the thick pillows piled beneath Mrs Spenser's. Her light brown skin is dull and slightly loose across her cheeks, as though they had very recently have lost a little of the fullness they once had.  
  
She looks exhausted, bone-weary, but she gives Alasdair an amicable smile when Gabriella introduces them, nevertheless, and her grip is strong and sure as they shake hands.  
  
When she drops Alasdair's hand and takes up her wife's once more, the twists of intricate knotwork tattooed around their ring fingers form a seamless pattern; a Brittonic custom so ancient that even the bards have no record of how it began.  
  
"I'm glad you could come and see us so promptly, Corporal Kirkland." Dr Spenser's diction surprises Alasdair with its short vowels and elided consonants. Broad and unapologetic Old Town. He hasn't known many people who have managed to work their way up from its environs to a position in Eastgate society, and every one that he has encountered – M. Jansen included – has made every effort to gentrify their accent accordingly in an effort to pretend they've never lived anywhere else. "Now Helen's so well recovered, I want to have her moved to my own clinic as soon as possible, and I was worried that we might not be able to talk to a guard soon enough that we didn't end up losing another night."  
  
Alasdair reads both insult and exasperation into the small frown that briefly mars Gabriella's brow. For her patient's sake, she doubts the efficacy of purgation and blood-letting, as doctors tend to rely on to treat just about any ill, and for her own, dislikes the profession's condescending attitude towards her own discipline, which they dismiss as 'folkloric herblore' and 'wishful thinking' despite the evidence of centuries upon centuries of saved lives.  
  
Although Alasdair sympathises with Gabriella's annoyance, and would usually share it, he is inclined to believe that Dr Spenser's eagerness to have Mrs Spenser home has more to do with the prince's letter and the spectre of the Seekers' investigations hanging over their heads than it does any prejudice against Gabriella's treatments which have, after all, brought her wife through her ordeal alive, if not yet completely well.  
  
"I'll be as quick as I can," Alasdair says, taking up the paper and pen Gabriella had provided for him. He inclines his head towards Mrs Spenser. "Could you describe your movements directly before your attack for me?"  
  
Mrs Spenser's papery eyelids shiver open, revealing pale and slightly unfocused blue eyes. She exchanges a swift glance with her wife before answering, and Alasdair can see pure relief in it on both their parts. Relief, he supposes, that he didn't start out with the question that they had likely feared to answer, and that he had no intention of asking: why, exactly, were you in a dingy, sewage-strewn alleyway in Old Town in the first place?  
  
"I walked up the main road – King Llewellyn's Way, I think it's called – all the way from Auger's Brow in Eastgate," Mrs Spenser says, her voice whisper-thin and raw-sounding. "I didn't see anything out of the ordinary, just the sort of hustle and bustle you'd expect on any normal street. I don't think I was being followed. At least, I didn't notice anyone.  
  
"When I reached the alleyway, it was empty. I remember thinking that it was likely due to the smell. It absolutely reeked, and there was... There appeared to be effluent covering the cobbles. Even though my bag was so heavy it was making my shoulder ache, I couldn't bear to put it down in case it got covered with the stuff."  
  
They hadn't found a bag, and Alasdair adds a remark in his report that it should be inquired after. If it was as finely made as the clothes Mrs Spenser had been wearing when she was attacked, then more than likely it had been found by some unscrupulous Old Town citizen who considered its discovery a stroke of luck – as Niall Walsh apparently did – and subsequently sold on, but even so it could lead to someone who might have seen something useful whilst they were helping themselves, all the same.  
  
"I waited... oh, it must have been twenty minutes or more for... the person I was due to meet, before I started to wonder if either they or I had got the wrong time or place. I thought I should make my way back onto the road, to double check on my directions, but as I turned to leave, I heard a... a noise. Up above me."  
  
Her eyes screw tightly closed, as though struggling either to recall some recalcitrant detail, or else with a memory that pained her.  
  
"What sort of noise?" Alasdair prompts gently.  
  
"I can't... I can't really remember," Mrs Spenser says, sounding apologetic. "I think it was... Yes, it was a short, harsh noise. Like something snapping or breaking, and when I looked up to see what it was, I saw a dark flicker by the chimney of the building opposite, and then something sharp hit me." She lifts her free hand, and runs her fingers shakily over the small pinprick of a wound on her neck. "I felt sick almost instantly, then woozy, and then... I don't know what happened then. Everything else is just black until I woke up here."  
  
"And this 'dark flicker'? Did you get any sort of impression of shape, or size?"  
  
"No, it was just that. A flicker. Perhaps the corner of a cloak or coat flapping in the wind... I'm sorry, Corporal. I don't know." Her breath quivers weakly at the back of her throat. "That's everything I can remember."  
  
The glare Dr Spenser bestows upon Alasdair speaks her feelings towards subjecting Mrs Spenser to further questions both fiercely and succinctly. Alasdair submits to her unvoiced suggestion without protest, because he really can't think of any he wants to ask at the moment. None that have a chance of being answered truthfully, anyway.  
  
The fact that the attack had come from the rooftops could have been conjectured from the crime scene itself, because, on consideration, there was no cover anywhere else in the alleyway that could have served to conceal anything much bigger than the cat. But aside from that, Mrs Spenser's sparse recollections had held two vital pieces of information: the existence of her bag, and, more importantly, the prince's friend's absence.  
  
"Thank you, Mrs Spenser," Alasdair says. "That should be enough for us to work with for now. You're obviously tired, so I'll let you get some rest. Either myself or one of my colleagues will likely be visiting you to follow up with more questions later, though."  
  
"Of course," Mrs Spenser rasps out, and "Of course," Dr Spenser echoes firmly, but Alasdair somehow doubts that the guards will have the opportunity for a second interview. Mrs Spenser will be finishing that aborted flight to Caledonia sooner rather than later, he shouldn't wonder, likely with Dr Spenser in tow this time.  
  
"I'll go and deliver this report to my captain right away,"  Alasdair says to the Spensers, carefully slipping the paper into his pocket as he rises from his chair. To Gabriella, he adds, "Can you let His Highness know where I've gone, Gabs, before he starts fretting about me? Tell him I shouldn't be more than an hour or so."

 

 

* * *

  
  
  
  
Alasdair's route back from the guardhouse is a circuitous one that takes in not only the apothecary, to inform his brothers of the house-watching duties they have been appointed to in absentia, but also the Lost Antler, to catch up on guardly news with Angus (which is thankfully free of kilt-related gossip, but also disappointingly lacking in updates on both the murder investigation and the current whereabouts of Angus' fugitive brother).  
  
Consequently, it is closer to two hours later when he finally returns to Gabriella's clinic. The prince doesn't seem to have worried about his prolonged absence even slightly, however. In truth, he seems instead to have been revelling in it.  
  
Following the sounds of merriment that sound far too raucous to be entirely respectful for a clinic ward, he finds the prince holding court at its sole resident's bedside.  
  
He's seated in the chair that her wife had been using when Alasdair left, poised as if it were a golden throne rather than worn wickerwork and wood; straight-backed and tall, with his head held high and his eyes sparking bright. His hands swoop through the air like birds in front of him, fingers fluttering, as he describes some faux pas of an acquaintance of his that is apparently so hilariously egregious that it has sent Gabriella into the sort of hiccoughing guffaws she's usually only driven to when she's had too much to drink, and poor, invalid Mrs Spenser looks to be desperately gasping to catch her breath through her own laughter.  
  
Only Lili, perched on the end of the bed next to Mrs Spenser's, is silent, but she's staring up at the prince's face like he's hung the moon, stars, and countless other celestial objects besides: pink-cheeked and awed. The prince gives no sign that he's noticed her drinking in his sharp, angular profile like she's parched and it's the closest thing to water she can see, but the high colour limning his own cheekbones does indicate that he's thoroughly enjoying being the centre of attention in general, all the same.  
  
A flash of movement at the periphery of Alasdair's vision catches his eye, and he turns towards it to see Gabriella waving at him vigorously.  
  
"Did you get your report delivered safely, Aly?" she asks breathlessly.  
  
"Aye, I—"  
  
"Corporal," the prince says, drawling out the appellation so languidly that it feels to Alasdair, in his resultant embarrassment, to take near a full minute to complete. He sounds a little drunk; perhaps having availed himself of some of Gabriella's good brandy as well as her parlour to give him succour whilst he waited for Alasdair to finish conducting his interview. "You've returned to us at long last!"  
  
The joy in his voice is better suited to greeting a returning war hero than a man who has merely taken a slightly lengthier wander than expected around his own neighbourhood. Alasdair's embarrassment deepens, and then broadens when the prince shoots him one of his crooked, dimpled smiles.  
  
He had thought those smiles to be private ones, somehow; not for him, precisely, or _them_ , but not something that the prince would easily allow himself to show in company. So unstudied that it's appearance is almost unseemly, for a man who otherwise performs so carefully in public.  
  
"What did Comte Babineaux do then, Your Highness?" Lili chimes in, obviously eager to hear the rest of the prince's scathing critique on the unfortunate noble's conduct.  
  
"Ah, all in good time, _ma petite_ ," the prince says. "I fear I've been telling tales for so long that I'm in danger of losing my voice. I think a drink is in order. Some tea, perhaps?"  
  
"I can get that for you, sir," Gabriella says, but the prince waves the offer briskly aside.  
  
"It will do me good to stretch my legs, too, and no doubt Mrs Spenser will be happier with you close at hand. I'm certain Lili can direct me to the kitchen, and help me carry the cups when we're done."  
  
"With pleasure, Your Highness," Lili says, springing energetically to her feet and then bounding ahead of the prince as she guides him towards the stairs which lead up to Gabriella's apartment.  
  
Alasdair blinks after her perplexedly. "I think I must have been gone for two _weeks_ rather than two hours without noticing. What the hells happened here? Last I saw, Lili was fucking petrified of him."  
  
"Oh, he can be very charming when he wants to be. And we were all taken in by it, I'm afraid," Gabriella says. "Lili most of all. If she was a few years older, I imagine she might be trying to snatch him out from under your nose."  
  
Alasdair scowls at her, but she simply smiles at him serenely. "My nose isn't anywhere near him, Gabs," he says. "I'm not—"  
  
"Interested? So you both say, and I was willing to believe there wasn't any truth in the rumours before I almost had to dislocate my shoulder trying to attract your attention just now," she says. "And before we were treated to a ten minute ode on the subject of you wearing a kilt."  
  
"It was very poetic," Mrs Spenser wheezes in agreement, which puts the fear of the gods into Alasdair that Eastgate will soon be joining Highgate and Old Town in their mistaken beliefs about his romantic life.  
  
He could cheerfully strangle the prince with his ridiculously shiny hair, his future personal guarding reputation be damned.  
  
His despair must show on his face, because Gabriella grabs hold of his hand and gives it a comforting squeeze. "We're only teasing, Aly," she says. "We know there's nothing like that going on. The prince was actually quite clear on that score, in a roundabout way."  
  
"All right," Alasdair says, somewhat mollified. "He just... rattles on sometimes. It doesn't mean anything real."  
  
"Of course not," Gabriella says, and then proceeds to distract him from dwelling upon the prince's behaviour by grilling him about the source of the faint smell of ale that is apparently clinging to his clothing.  
  
As Alasdair tells her about his meeting with Angus and his visit to the apothecary, Mrs Spenser slips into a doze, but when the clattering of tea things announces the prince and Lili's return, she rouses not only with the suddenness of shock, but a soft cry of alarm.  
  
"Corporal," she says, her eyes finding Alasdair's quickly and unerringly. "Corporal, I've remembered something about the attack, and I must tell you before I forget again. Just before I was struck by that dart, I think... No, I'm certain that I heard someone say, 'I'm sorry'."

 

 


	42. Chapter 42

"So," Alasdair says as soon as the carriage sways into motion, "Mrs Spenser told me that your friend never turned up to meet her, though she'd waited on him for twenty minutes or so."  
  
The prince's hands still on his shirtfront, from which he had been vigorously straightening imagined wrinkles. "Can this wait a moment whilst I recompose myself, Aly?" he asks, sounding slightly petulant.  
  
From past observation, it takes the prince longer to 'recompose' from the harrowing effects upon his dress and person of being outside for a moment or two than Alasdair spends on his entire morning toilet, and thus would waste a good portion of their ride back to the palace. Despite the prince's reassurances regarding the security of his chambers, Alasdair can't help but think that the carriage is a far better venue for delicate conversations such as these when they have the option of it, safe from both untimely interruptions and prying eyes; their voices muffled by the pounding of the horses' hooves without.  
  
It is the carriage's sole recommendation as a mode of transportation, to his mind.  
  
"You look fine, Francis," he says. "What does it matter if you've got a bit wind in your hair and dust on your boots? There's only me here and I don't care about either."  
  
The prince glances down at his feet, fingers twitching towards his pocket handkerchief, but with what appears to be a supreme effort of will, he catches himself short of grasping hold of it, and then rests his hands in a prim fold against one knee.  
  
He meets Alasdair's eyes squarely, and says, "Now, what were you saying about Mrs Spenser?"  
  
"Your friend never turned up to meet her," Alasdair repeats through gritted teeth. His obvious annoyance earns him a look of some contrition from the prince, though not an outright apology. "She'd been waiting twenty minutes before she was attacked, and he'd not shown his face."  
  
"My friend would not have been due for a while, in that case," the prince says. "I thought the risk of attracting notice would be greater if he were to make his way the rendezvous point at the same time as whoever he was to meet, so the arrival times I gave to the two of them were staggered."  
  
"It might have been a good idea to mention that in your letter to Mrs Spenser. She didn't say it in so many words, but I got the impression she was on the verge of giving up on the wait entirely."  
  
"I concede it might well have been, but hindsight is so much clearer than fore." The prince smiles crookedly. "I'm afraid the prospect had not occurred to me."  
  
Alasdair would have spelt it out with capitals, underlined, and perhaps in red ink for clarity, but then he wouldn't have expected an Eastgate lady or gentleman to stand easy in a secluded part of Old Town for one minute, never mind upwards of twenty.  
  
"I presume that same delay was true in M. Martinez' case, too?" he asks, to which the prince nods. "Which makes me think that, whoever the attacker is, they probably saw _both_ of the letters you sent to set up these meetings, seeing as though they seemed to know each time that Martinez and Spenser would be alone for a spell."  
  
The prince nods again, but the movement seems to lack any great conviction. "One thing that troubles me," he says hesitantly, "is what became of my friend in both instances.  
  
"I cannot believe that he would let an injured person suffer, or leave a dead body unreported, no matter his precarious circumstances, so I doubt he came across M. Martinez or Mrs Spenser before the guards did. Yet you did not see him at the scene of M. Martinez' murder, arriving at the designated time. And I kept watch for him whilst we were helping Healer Carriedo with Mrs Spenser, but saw no sign of him then, either."  
  
"He probably saw all the guards gathered around as he approached, and thought it sensible to keep his distance," Alasdair says, even though he thinks it just as likely that the prince's friend evaded their noticed by dint of flickering darkly around the rooftops. It seems too early to raise that possibility to the prince, however, as his trust in his friend remains so absolute still that he doubtless would not entertain it on any lesser evidence than a signed confession of guilt.  
  
"But if he did see such a thing, he sent me no word of it. No advance warning that his missions had not been successful."  
  
"I thought the two of you didn't speak?"  
  
"No, but he often leaves me letters when he picks up those I set out for him." The prince closes his eyes with a soft groan. "Using the same hiding spot. Where, if it has been compromised as you suggest, they could easily be intercepted in just the same way."  
  
"All the more reason for us to keep careful watch of that spot tomorrow," Alasdair says. "Seems as though it's going to be our best chance of catching our culprit before I have to paint a bloody target on my arse and hang around in an alleyway, hoping they turn up trying to shoot at it."  
  
The prince turns his head aside, casting his gaze towards the darkened window beside him, but his unease is writ clear nevertheless, plain in the pronounced tendons of his neck and hard set of his jaw.  
  
"I still find it so difficult to countenance that they must be someone I know. Someone I might see or talk to every day. Perhaps even..." He swallows heavily. "Perhaps even someone I call kin. How could I live so close to them, and never realise that they're the sort of monster who could do this?"  
  
"They're not necessarily a monster," Alasdair says, as much in attempt to give the prince some comfort as in the interest of keeping him appraised on all the facts of the case. "Or, at least, they might not think of themselves as such. Mrs Spenser said that her attacker apologised before they shot her. In which case, it doesn't sound as though they took any pleasure in the act. Maybe they were ordered to do it, or thought they _had_ to, for some reason, or –"  
  
"However apologetic they may have been, it didn't stay their hand, did it? They still killed M. Martinez and put Mrs Spenser in peril of her life," the prince says. "What does it matter how noble a person's thoughts might be, if their acts are still monstrous ones."  
  
Alasdair has no argument to give to that, no more thin reassurances to hand, and the prince too falls into silence until the rattling of the carriage's wheels gives way to a gentler swoosh that indicates they have left Old Town for the palace road.  
  
Then, the prince gives his head a little shake, as though to forcibly break himself free from deep thoughts, and says, "Aly, M. Martinez had not been dead long when you found him, had he?"  
  
"Only quarter of an hour or so, I reckon," Alasdair says. "Why do you ask?"  
  
"Oh, only that it seems odd to me that both victims were found so quickly, given how out of the way they were when they were attacked."  
  
"It was nothing but pure luck that Angus and I stumbled upon M. Martinez, I assure you," Alasdair says. "With Mrs Spenser, Corporal Bell said that some bloke came running up to him and Parker whilst they were patrolling, told them he'd found her. He just pointed them in the right direction, apparently, and then buggered straight off again."  
  
The prince's eyebrows quirk upwards. "And did Corporal Bell give a description of this concerned citizen?"  
  
"Not much of one to speak of, really. He was there and gone so quickly that he barely got chance to look at him. Pale and not overly tall was all he had to say about him. Does that sound like your friend?" Alasdair asks, guessing it to be the best reason for the prince's sudden interest in the particulars.  
  
"No," the prince says, "though who apart from him would be so brusque with the guards? Surely if this man were concerned that Mrs Spenser be found, he would accompany them along the way to make sure of it?"  
  
"Plenty of people would rather avoid the guards if they can." Alasdair shrugs. "And most of them for pretty good reasons. Doesn't mean that they're all bad enough sorts to pretend they haven't seen a dead woman lying in the street."  
  
"Still, he must have found her almost immediately," the prince says, a faint frown nicking his brow. "When Corporal Ellis came to you in the guardhouse to inform you of Mrs Spenser's discovery, it was not even an hour past the time she expected to meet my friend. And we both know what an unpleasant situation she was in, sewage bubbling up from the street all around her. I can't imagine why anyone else would choose to wander down that way, especially as the alleyway is a dead end."  
  
There's a note of hope in his voice that Alasdair can understand, for all that it's such a ludicrous one that he could almost laugh at if it wasn't so clear that the prince was clinging onto it desperately.  
  
"Apart from your friend and the attacker themselves, you mean?" he says. "Look, Francis, if they were so fucking apologetic that they'd risk getting collared for Mrs Spenser's sake, they wouldn't have shot her at all, would they."  
  
"If she hadn't found so soon after her attack, she would have died. So whoever the man was, he _did_ save her life."  
  
"Aye," Alasdair says, gentling his tone. "I'm inclined to think _his_ timing was pure luck, too, though."

 

* * *

  
  
  
  
The prince's first act when he and Alasdair return to his chambers is to rush to his desk and fall to his knees in front of it, his expression pensive.  
  
His breath soon rushes from him in a sigh of relief that segues into a thready chuckle. "My room, at least, remains safe," he says. "It's undisturbed, just as I told you it would be."  
  
Alasdair's eyes aren't as quick as the prince's but his study of the desk is far more thorough, taking in not only the unbroken hair still tied between its drawers but the muddle of pens, ink wells, and scraps of paper the prince hadn't bothered to tidy away before they left for Gabriella's clinic.  
  
As with so many things, he can still picture it as clearly as if he had stopped to paint a precise picture of it: how there were five drops of ink splattered across the top of the blotter instead of the rough smear that covers half its length now; how the bottle containing black ink was set a little to the left of the gold pen instead of a little to the right; how the prince had placed the letter opener with its blade pointing up instead of down.

"Your letters might not have been disturbed," he says, "but I definitely can't say the same for your room."


	43. Chapter 43

The prince pushes himself to his feet with such haste that he snarls the heel of one boot in the trailing tail of his frockcoat and almost takes a tumble straight back down again. He spurns the hand Alasdair unthinkingly extends to help support him, and instead catches hold of the edge of the desk to balance himself, inclining the full weight of his body towards it.  
  
"How can you tell its been disturbed?" he asks, his eyes growing wide and panicked as he too scans the desk's top. "I can see nothing out of place."  
  
"You've said it yourself before, my memory's unforgivingly good," Alasdair says. "I remember exactly how the desk was laid out when we left it, and it wasn't like this."  
  
"No-one's memory's _that_ good," the prince says, though he sounds more desperate than dismissive.  
  
"Mine is, if I put my mind to it," Alasdair says firmly. "I can't claim to recall every detail of everything I've ever seen, but then I don't usually care to try. We were staring down at that bloody desk for nigh on an hour before we went to the clinic, though, and by that point I wouldn't have been able to forget how it appeared then, even if I wanted to."  
  
The prince's lips purse, his brow dipping low. "Are you certain?"  
  
"You want proof? Look, I could tell you the name of each book you have in your study if you really want it, but I think there are better things we could both be doing with our time. You'll just have to take me on trust."  
  
For someone who placed his entire life in another man's hands on a basis of nothing more than a few days' acquaintance and a reckless leap of faith, the prince seems surprisingly unwilling to do just that.  
  
"You've only entered that room twice, as far as I'm aware," he says sceptically.  
  
Alasdair sighs. "Right, starting from the bottom shelf nearest the door, there's Mancini's _Historia Brittonum_ , then Lemaire's _Colette_ , Lewis' _Forty Nights in Gallia_ , Turner's –"  
  
"Enough." The prince expels a short breath of laughter. "Please, that's enough. I shall have to take your word for it, anyway, as I certainly haven't memorised the order of my bookshelves so diligently. Why would you even think to do that?"  
  
"I didn't set out to," Alasdair says. "I just tend to recall things better if they pique my interest, and libraries are always apt to do so."  
  
"And we're fortunate that desks do, too, apparently." The prince's shoulders slump. "What do you suppose the... the interloper was doing here? Writing their own letter?"  
  
Alasdair hadn't yet had time to speculate, merely observe, but the prince's suggestion seems plausible enough. "Might be best to check those you wrote earlier, and make sure they haven't been tampered with."  
  
"The hair was intact, Aly," the prince points out, yet he still extracts his letters from the drawer; unfolds them with trembling hands. "They're unchanged," he adds after examining them closely. "Whatever was done here, it seems they weren't the object. Can you see anything else amiss in the room?"  
  
"No," Alasdair says after quickly looking around the bedchamber, "but, then again, I didn't think to make a study of it, either. It might be best if you take stock yourself, because you're far more likely to notice if something's out of place here than I am."  
  
The prince makes a vague noise of agreement and then starts to prowl about the room, slowly and deliberately, casting his eye over every inch of it: peeking behind the curtains, under the furniture, and even stripping back his bedclothes to peer between the sheets.

This entire examination is conducted with quiet, steady concentration, but he barely steps more than a foot over the threshold of his dressing room before he's sent reeling back, his expression pinched tight and his face bloodlessly pale.  
  
"There's a bottle of scent missing from my dressing table," he says, raising an unsteady hand to rub at his eyes as though trying to scour away the sight. "And one of my brushes."  
  
"Were they worth much? Someone might have nicked them to sell on." Whilst Alasdair wouldn't normally be so quick cast aspersions on the integrity of rest of the palace staff, the idea that the intruder's motives were entirely pecuniary is much more comforting than any of the alternatives.  
  
"The scent was a common one, though one of my favourites, and the bottle was almost dry," the prince says, shaking his head. "And the brush might once have been valuable, but the ivory backing was cracked, and it was missing most of its bristles. Even so, it used to be Maman's, and I couldn't bear to part with it.  
  
"At first glance, however, I suppose they might have appeared far finer than they actually are. You're probably right, Aly. I'll take it up with the butler; no doubt he'll be able to find the perpetrator in this case far more easily than we ever could. Besides, we have far more important things to concern ourselves with than a spot of petty thievery."

 

 

* * *

   
  
  
Despite the prince's apparent readiness to pin blame for the theft on some as yet hypothetical light-fingered servant, and his refusal to discuss the matter further, he still seems far more unsettled than the scale of his losses would account for.  
  
Following his talk with the butler, he calls for his dinner to be brought up to his chambers again, and again Alasdair has to suffer the embarrassment of a hearty appetite whilst the prince picks and pokes at his own food, and ultimately sends his plate away half-full.  
  
Afterwards, he curls himself up against one arm of the sitting room sofa with a book, though he spends longer gazing at nothing in particular than looking down at its pages.  
  
Alasdair finishes his own book and then takes up the second in the series, which opens with a gratifyingly gory series of sea battles, just as the prince had promised it would.  
  
By the time the clock on the mantelpiece chimes out eleven o'clock, the prince has given up all pretence at reading in favour of staring broodingly at the dying fire in the grate, and Alasdair's head and eyes are so blurred with exhaustion that he's read the same paragraph four times over without it once making anything close to sense.  
  
His spine pops and crackles all along its length as he unfolds himself from his armchair, and he has to forcefully massage the small of his back with his knuckles to restore even a modicum of feeling to the tense muscles there.  
  
"

I'm going to head off to bed, Francis," he says, "otherwise I'm going to be neither use nor ornament tomorrow morning."  
  
The prince startles visibly and then blinks up at Alasdair, slow and confused, as if he'd forgotten that he wasn't alone. "Of course," he says, his voice rasping dryly. "I apologise, I shouldn't have kept you up this long."  
  
When Alasdair tries to take his leave, however, the prince springs immediately to his feet and catches hold of his sleeve, stilling him before he can reach the door.  
  
"I'm not going to get very far with you hanging on my arm," he says, which prompts the prince to drop his grip, but does not inspire either a second apology or an explanation.  
  
Alasdair turns to examine the prince more closely; notes his slightly opened mouth, the downward cast of his eyes, and the compulsive swipe of his tongue across his bottom lip, and deduces, "You want to tell me something?"  
  
"No," the prince says quickly, and then without a noticeable pause, adds, "Yes, I..."  
  
"Something about the theft, perhaps?" Alasdair asks, when the prince's silence becomes prolonged enough to suggest that he has lost all impetus to continue. "Do you have some idea about who could be responsible? Or –"  
  
"Given your superlative memory, I'm sure you recall me telling you that I desire privacy in my bedchamber," the prince says, firing out the words at the rapid clip of someone eager to speak them before they have chance to rethink the wisdom of the decision. "But I lied, Aly. I don't _desire_ it, I _need_ it. After enduring three years of my father's constant, relentless intrusions into my personal space, his confiscations of anything he deemed 'needless fripperies', I need to know that... that I'm _allowed_ that.  
  
"I'm sure you'll think I'm ridiculous, but it makes my skin crawl to think that someone has been in there without my permission. It makes me feel _unsafe_."    
  
He looks so wretched after that admission, so ashamed and unnerved, that Alasdair feels compelled to pat his arm consolingly, even though it does indeed strike him as a little ridiculous, given how heavily the palace is protected, both inside and out.  
  
The prince seems to crumple at the contact, however. He throws up his arms as his knees buckle, though not to steady himself as had been Alasdair's immediate assumption. Instead, they close around Alasdair's shoulders, and before he has chance to react, he's drawn so close to the prince that he can feel the man's heartbeat thundering against his own chest.  
  
On reflex, Alasdair loops his arms around the prince's back and squeezes gently, just as he would if it were Dylan or Michael or Gabriella who had turned to him for comfort. The prince lifts himself up onto the balls of his feet in response, pressing his heated cheek against the side of Alasdair's neck for a brief moment before he suddenly breaks away again with a burst of slightly hysterical-sounding laughter.  
  
"Forgive me, Aly," he says as he staggers backwards a few paces. "I wasn't... I shouldn't have let myself do that. I know you don't care for such things."  
  
"No, what you _know_ is what I told you before, which is that it doesn't bother me," Alasdair says exasperatedly. "I don't explode into flames upon contact, as you can see."  
  
The prince looks him over with such intense scrutiny that Alasdair almost believes that he hasn't been taken at his word in this, either, and is being checked for signs of smouldering, at least until the prince clears his throat and asks, "Will you sleep with me tonight?"  
  
Alasdair's stomach lurches sickeningly, head swirling with thoughts of escape, of flight, and, beneath them all, hurt at the prince's betrayal. He'd believed they'd understood each other, albeit imperfectly, but give the man an inch, it seems, and he'll try and take it straight to bed.  
  
"Sir, just because I don't mind you hugging me, it doesn't mean I'm any better disposed towards fucking you."  
  
The prince cringes. "Again, I'm sorry, Corporal. I'm not thinking very clearly, and I didn't mean that the way it sounded. I meant only to ask you to share my chambers, and not my bed. I don't imagine I'd be able to rest easily on my own after this evening's discovery."  
  
Relief sinks so quickly and deeply through Alasdair's body that it leaves him feeling a little light-headed and shaky afterwards.  
  
"I'd be a pretty poor excuse for a personal guard if I didn't, in that case," he says, the implicit offer born as much from gratitude as forgiveness. "Though I don't intend sleeping at the _foot_ of your bed, either."  
  
The prince raises a slender eyebrow questioningly. "Whyever would I ask that of you?"  
  
"I've read that it was a custom of Gallian nobles to make their servants sleep there," Alasdair says, shrugging. "Or else stretched out in front of their door, like a draught excluder."  
  
"An ancient custom, perhaps, but not one we follow today," the prince reassures him. "No, nowadays we expect them to take the settee."

 

 

* * *

 

  
  
With the prince's warnings of his unclothed sleeping habits in mind, Alasdair lingers over his own nighttime preparations to reduce the risk of catching him en route between dressing room and bed.  
  
When he cautiously enters the bedchamber, however, the prince is not only safely tucked up beneath his quilt, but the flash of white linen Alasdair glimpses gathered around his neck reveals that he's decently nightshirted, as well. A good thing, too, as he soon sits up to more easily track Alasdair's progress across the room.  
  
"You brought your sword, I see," he observes without inflection when Alasdair props it up against the side of the settee.  
  
"Aye, well, I'm no slouch as a boxer," Alasdair says, "but I'd be far better able to protect you with a blade in my hand than without."  
  
"Protect me," the prince says, chuckling weakly. "Do you still think I'm brave, Aly, after seeing me shaking in my boots over nothing more than a lost hairbrush?"  
  
"Plenty of people are scared of far stranger things, Francis," Alasdair says, to which the prince gives no answer save for the dimming of the lamp at his bedside.  
  
As Alasdair attempts to settle himself into sleep, however, the question keeps on nagging at him, disturbing him more than the bent-kneed, hunch-backed posture the short length of the settee forces him into, and the scratch of the thickly embroidered upholstery against his skin.  
  
"I'm scared of birds," he announces without clear forethought or reason, save that it eases some tight feeling within his chest to do so.  
  
"You are?" the prince asks, his voice warm and tinged with concern. "And why's that, Aly?"  
  
Alasdair's never been more glad of the darkness, as it not only hides the blood he can feel rushing to his cheeks, but also the look of amusement he's sure the prince would be giving him in daylight.  
  
"They've got horrible scaly reptile legs, and beady little eyes." Alasdair shudders at the mere thought. "I'm sure one must have attacked me when I was a bairn and too wee to fight it off, or something like, but if it did, I can't remember anything other than I fucking hate the disgusting beasts."  
  
The prince is silent for so long that Alasdair is certain that he must have fallen asleep, but he eventually remarks with a solemnity that the ludicrous statement doesn't deserve, "Then I suppose I'll step in to protect you if our intruder turns out to be avian in nature."  
  
Ludicrous though the statement may be, Alasdair still feels oddly reassured by it, so much so that his eyelids finally begin to sag. "Thanks for the thought, Francis, but you wouldn't have to worry about me, even then," he says through a jaw-cracking yawn. "I always fight twice as hard when I'm scared."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've just realised that I'm reluctant to completely let go of the whole 'Sir', 'Corporal' thing because it's a decent counterpart to the 'An Fhraing', 'Ecosse' routine Scotland and France still get into when they're pissed off with each other.
> 
> Also, Scotland is scared of birds, as well, I just still haven't finished the fic that explores that despite it being half finished for about two years at this point...


	44. Chapter 44

Between the distant rustle of unseen wings that shadowed his dreams whenever he closed his eyes, and the gnawing ache of his contorted joints when he opened them, Alasdair feels no more rested by the time pallid light starts seeping through the curtains above his head than if he'd never laid his head down at all.  
  
In the quiet stillness of dawn, the rusted-hinge creak of his knees as he begins to gingerly unfurl himself from the settee sounds loud enough to set even the dead rising to complain about the din, but the prince slumbers on unperturbed. By the grace of the gods old, new, and as yet undiscovered, he has cocooned himself so snugly inside his quilts that only a few hanks of golden hair are left exposed, because his propriety appears to have lost a battle against engrained habit at some point during the night. His nightshirt has been cast to the floor by his bed, crumpled like a discarded handkerchief.  
  
A compulsion to disrobe that's so overwhelming that not even sleep can quell it seems an incongruous one for a man who hadn't been able stand a relatively mild autumnal night outside without wrapping himself in thick wool from head to toe, especially when the fire has burnt itself down to dead ashes, and the promise of winter is a sharp enough sting in the air that it hurts to breathe in.  
  
It's not a morning conducive to a slow easing into the day, not least because Alasdair's own nightshirt is clammy with fear-sweat and clinging cold and uncomfortably close around his arms and throat, so after a quick chafing of his hands and stamping of his feet to return some life and warmth to them, he forgoes his normal stretching routine in favour of an equally quick dash for the bedchamber door.  
  
It swings open to reveal a young servant dithering about in the corridor beyond, skinny arms shuddering under the weight of several large parcels wrapped in brown paper and twine. His eyes, barely visible above the precariously balanced pile, pop wide when he catches sight of Alasdair, and he freezes so completely that he looks as though he might actually have been turned to ice by the chambers' frigid atmosphere instead of just feeling like it was a distinct possibility.  
  
More than likely, though, it's simple shock. Despite the heated water that periodically appears in time for the prince's baths, the fires which are set in the sitting room and study grates, and the daily influx of fresh flowers used to decorate near every piece of flat space large enough to hold a vase, Alasdair has never once seen a servant in the prince's public chambers save for those tasked with bringing him his food.  
  
When he had questioned the prince about their absence he had been told that it was a mark of their quality, as good servants should be near invisible. They certainly seem able to perform their duties as covertly as the fairies Ma had always insisted would clean a person's home if they had milk enough to spare to set out a saucer of it for them in payment.  
  
This poor lad, caught unexpectedly in the midst of his work, probably thus fears he's made a terrible misstep.  
  
However, as he's rooted himself to the most of inconvenient of spots, his body barring access to Alasdair's own room, Alasdair can hardly pretend he hasn't seen him for all that it might be the kindest thing to do. Instead, he gives the lad an encouraging smile and says quietly, "Are those for the prince?"  
  
The lad makes a strange clucking sort of noise that suggests either his mouth feels too dry, or his tongue too heavy, to form words.  
  
"I can take them to give to him later, if you like," Alasdair continues in the same soft, soothing tone. "His Highness is still asleep right now."  
  
The lad's gaze skips from Alasdair to the open doorway behind him and back, twice in rapid succession, and as the skin on his forehead ripens with a blush, Alasdair realises that it hadn't been consternation at being observed that had stupefied him, after all, but embarrassment.  
  
An embarrassment that Alasdair finds he doesn't share. His acquaintance with the prince, it is now abundantly clear, is doomed to be rife with these sorts of misunderstandings, and he thinks he must therefore be becoming inured to them when they occur to strangers. He can't quite summon up the energy for the old righteous indignation he used to feel, and never more so than at this ungodly hour when every minute of his uncomfortable night on the settee is still painfully etched into each of his muscles.  
  
He sighs and turns to close the bedchamber door behind him, hiding the prince and his bed from view.  
  
The lad shivers back into life at the sound of the latch catching, and his eyes swiftly refocus on Alasdair's face. "You're His Highness' personal guard, right? Corporal Kirkland? These are for you," he says, holding his arms slightly higher in demonstration. "They came late last night from His Highness' tailor."  
  
Alasdair had been expecting nothing more than a pair of replacement trousers from Mlle. Labelle, but, judging by the size of the delivery, she must have taken the opportunity to run up an entirely new uniform. He can but hope that this one is at least a little less indecent than the last.  
  
The lad scarpers as soon as his burden is lifted from him, clearly eager to spread his new bit of gossip far and wide in the servants' quarters, and Alasdair stands immobile himself for a while in the lad's place, contemplating whether or not he should just hurl the parcels out of a window and then pretend ignorance if the prince happens to ask after them.  
  
Ultimately – but with extreme reluctance – he decides that would not only be a great insult to Mlle. Labelle's hard work, but also liable to raise the spectre of the kilt once more if the prince were ever to require him to play dress up again. Still, he can't bring himself to uncover what fresh horror she's inflicted upon him until the last possible moment.  
  
Using the small brown bar of soap he'd purloined from the prince's bathroom, he washes himself at his basin, carefully scrubbing at every inch of his skin despite the chill. Thereafter he brushes his teeth and shaves just as thoroughly, fights with his hair, polishes his boots, wraps himself up in his blankets and reads another chapter of his book, and then, and only then, admits that he's perhaps acting a little cowardly.  
  
He does penance by tearing into the packages with a vicious alacrity thereafter, and once their contents are finally revealed, curses himself for waiting so long to get his hands on them.  
  
It's as near to the uniform of the Imperial army's Gallian legions as makes no odds: a short-tailed Gallian blue coat with Imperial red cuffs and white piping at the lapels, a light blue woollen undercoat, and two white leather crossguards. The only real difference lies in the trousers, which are also Gallian blue and not madder red.  
  
He dons the clothes eagerly, and then stands atop his bed so he can study himself in the mirror, his eyes misting with tears. If the coat's proportions of red and blue were reversed, then _this_ is what he would have looked like as a soldier, marching into battle at his sister's side.  
  
It looks, to borrow the prince's expression, _exquisite_.  
  
After taking a moment to compose himself so that he doesn't feel quite so much like he might break down sobbing like a child given the scantest excuse for it, he resolves to tell the prince just that.  
  
Or not _precisely_ that, he reconsiders as he nears the prince's bedroom, his blood cools, and the attraction of the idea begins to pall.  
  
Something close to it, anyway. If the prince didn't give Mlle. Labelle the exact specifications of the uniform himself, he did at least pay for it, which definitely demanded some small measure of gratitude. A simple thank you will be enough. He isn't one for gushing, so throwing the prince's own words back at him would probably just sound like he was taking the piss.  
  
Sure of his course of action now, he gives a firm knock at the prince's door and says, "Are you decent, sir?"  
  
"As I can ever be, Corporal," the prince calls back promptly. "Please, come in."  
  
Unsurprisingly, the prince's definition of decent is, it turns out, somewhat askew from Alasdair's own.  
  
He is sprawled in the armchair beside his bed, face still roughened with stubble and pillow creases, wearing a thick crimson dressing gown whose two sides are parted high enough at the bottom to reveal the full length of his calves, and at the top, low enough to reveal that the hair on his chest is a shade darker than that on his head; a discovery that feels far too intimate for Alasdair's comfort.  
  
He twists his head aside, but that merely serves to encourage the prince to spring to his feet and glide across the floor to face him again, his improperly fastened robe billowing every which way around his legs as he does so. In desperation, Alasdair closes his eyes.    
  
"You look just as good wearing my crest as I thought you would," the prince says at length, touching the small fleur-de-lis embroidered on the left breast of Alasdair's coat with the tip of his finger. "Very handsome."  
  
In his flustered state, Alasdair can't think of anything to say other than the words that had been at the forefront of his mind before entering the room. "Thank you."  
  
It makes the prince laugh, in any case. "What, no denial? No outrage?" The pitch of his voice lowers as he says, "I thought I'd finally learnt the rules of our game, and then you go and change them on me without warning. That's unsporting of you, Aly."  
  
"Sorry, Francis; just trying to keep you on your toes," Alasdair says, unable to keep himself from grinning at the feigned offence in the prince's tone, even despite the realisation that he hadn't actually felt either of the emotions that he'd been accused of. He can only assume that, without his noticing it, he must have become so inoculated against such remarks from the prince that they've made themselves as much a part of the conversational scenery as comments on the weather. "Though what I should really be thanking you for is the uniform."  
  
"You like it, then?"  
  
"I do," Alasdair says. "Certainly a lot better than the kilt."  
  
"Which no doubt means that I'll never persuade you to wear that again," the prince says with a deep sigh. "A shame, but I think I'll come to appreciate this uniform just as much in time. Now" – a small whispering shuffle of sound and a warm breath of stirred air indicate that the prince has taken a step back from Alasdair – "you've caught me flat-footed, I'm afraid, but I promise I can be ready in a moment or two, and we'll go and forage for something to eat in the kitchens. As soon as I return from my ride afterwards, we can make our delivery to the conservatory"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Indulgently and briefly segueing into the next block of plot with some more uniform appreciation, because I realised a little while ago that the arrival Alasdair's new clothes was a great opportunity to dress him up in something approximating a French uniform, which is _almost_ like them wearing each others' clothes (which is something I enjoy a great deal, especially when it comes to Scotland and France...).
> 
> Haha, I suspect that the identity of Francis' friend isn't anything close to being a mystery at this point, but as Alasdair hasn't quite made the connection yet, it has to be dragged out for a little while longer...


	45. Chapter 45

The prince's hiding place for his letters is not a bad one, all told: secreted beneath a large potted plant that looks no different to the three to its right and four to its left which is tucked at the back of the conservatory and mostly concealed by the twisted stems of a grape vine that has overgrown its trellis in all directions in search of light.  
  
Nevertheless, the vine's tendrils are flimsy, pliable things and thus hardly unassailable, and the inner doors that lead into the conservatory from the palace are, by the prince's own admission, only locked on those occasions when he entertains guests.  
  
"How can you be sure that no-one but your friend would be able to pick them up?" Alasdair asks. "There doesn't seem to be anything stopping someone else from walking in here whenever they fancy."  
  
"My friend will come to collect the letters no later than ten o'clock, as per our agreement. None of my family ever rise before that hour, so there's no chance of them disturbing him or stumbling across my delivery before it is collected." The prince straightens up from his crouch, and then, with a grimace of distaste, wipes at his hands with one of his snowy white handkerchiefs to rid them of the specks of soil and dust that had been left clinging to his fingers after lifting the pot. "Unless they are expressly serving myself or another member of my family, none of the staff are permitted to enter this room save for my friend, who is tasked with the cultivation of the plants here."  
  
When Alasdair entered the conservatory before – uninvited and, as the prince had then made abundantly clear, unwelcome – it had been in pursuit of a servant that Arthur had seemed sure would be at work there. A servant who, his brother had also informed him, had a sister given the unprecedented permission to visit with their family in town for a full day. A family which the prince has since informed him is entirely fictional.  
  
Alasdair's memory of that morning is one of his vivid ones, rich in colour and precise in detail; every sight, sound and smell of it as precisely recalled as if he were stepping into that moment again and reliving it in reality.  
  
_Ivan_. The prince's friend's name – the _centurion's_ name – is Ivan.  
  
A fact that the prince has been determined not to share, even though he claims implicit trust in all else, and thus Alasdair is unsure as to whether or not he should acknowledge it. On its own, the name is nothing just as much as it is everything. This Ivan had been sentenced to death in absentia, and one word in the right ear could have him hauled off to Roma and thence to the scaffold he had fled the continent to escape.  
  
That is precisely what the prince fears, for all that he has shown so little hesitation in ceding Alasdair power over his own life and death.  
  
Whilst Alasdair might never have entertained the idea of giving the man up to the military, come what may, civilian justice is another matter entirely. Even so, unless such a time arrives that it's imperative to single Ivan out, or expose him for the good of the people of Deva, his name is not as important as the role he has played, or has yet to play, in the prince's plots. Speaking it now might put the prince on the defensive, withdraw some of that faith that he has otherwise so freely given.  
  
The prince must read something other than indecision in Alasdair's expression, because he frowns and says, "I can see that you don't approve. You likely would have thought of some place more secure to drop the letters off, just as you would have foreseen the dangers of leaving them in my desk. If only I could have had you with me from the start, pointing out the deficiencies in all my plans, maybe then they wouldn't have gone so awry."  
  
He sounds more bitter than rueful, perhaps believing that Alasdair has been scorning all his efforts from the start; using the guise of investigation in order to mock them.  
  
"It's easier to see the flaws of something when you're on the outside looking in," Alasdair says. "I can't say that I've ever been known for the strength of my planning, and I sincerely doubt I could have arranged anything like you did if I'd had to figure it out from scratch by myself. Don't ever forget that you managed to save the lives of four people before it all went tits up."  
  
The prince is mollified enough to offer a smile, though it's such a small, stiff one that it barely qualifies as such. "I'm afraid my failures are far too fresh in my mind to allow me even that cold comfort," he says quietly. After checking his pocket watch, he adds in something approaching his normal, forthright tone, "Now, I wish I could keep you company on your watch from the start, but time and M. Jansen wait for no man. I'll come out and find you as soon as my meeting's over, though. Make sure you pick us a sheltered spot."

 

* * *

 

  
  
For the first ten minutes or so of his surveillance, Alasdair had believed he'd found a vantage point that the prince couldn't possibly object to: a bench set in a natural hollow in the ground, protected from the elements by the rising ground on three sides, and the thick branches of an ancient oak tree overhead. It had offered an excellent view of not only the entire front face of the conservatory, but also the room itself within; absolutely perfect right up until the moment that the brisk easterly wind swept the clouds away from the sun and the glass lit up like a flaring oil lamp, just as it had when Alasdair first set eyes on it with Arthur in tow.  
  
Silently cursing whatsoever and whomsoever was truly to blame for the cruelty of the weather – the gods and air currents are both subject to his inner wrath – he pockets the binoculars the prince had lent him and resumes his search of the gardens.  
  
To the south, the light is less blinding, but there's nary a speck of shelter in sight, whilst to the north...  
  
The north is rendered completely inhospitable by Prince Lovino, who pounces upon Alasdair as soon as he leaves the shielding cover of a plinth bearing the bronzed statue of some ancestral Bonnefoy or other's horse and strikes out across open ground once more.  
  
Though the grip the prince fixes on Alasdair's elbow is firm enough that Alasdair daren't risk trying to free himself from it for fear that he might break the man's arm in the process, the rest of him appears decidedly the worse for wear.  
  
Not only is he panting so hard following his short dash across the lawn that his lips are tinged a light, unhealthy blue, but he looks as though he'd dressed in the dark that morning, with one arm tied behind his back for good measure. Even Alasdair can see that his red waistcoat and green frockcoat clash horribly, neither of them is buttoned up correctly, and his boots are quite obviously not a pair. His hair is equally disarrayed, falling over his wild, staring eyes in knotted tangles.  
  
"You," he finally manages to wheeze forth, though the effort taxes him greatly. It sounds as though it was a close run race between his speaking and throwing up. "What are you doing out here?"  
  
"I," Alasdair begins, but his input is evidently neither needed nor desired, as Prince Lovino proceeds as though he'd never opened his mouth in explanation at all.  
  
"You should be looking after Francis," he says. "That is what we're all supposed to pretend is the reason you're here, isn't it?"  
  
"Yes, but –"  
  
"There's a murderer on the loose, and yet here you are, his so-called guard, ambling around like you haven't got a fucking care in the world."  
  
"He told me I could," Alasdair says, packing the words tight into a single breath so that he can be sure to get them out before he's interrupted.  
  
Prince Lovino scowls. "Francis is more than capable of playing the fool at times," he says. "That's why he needs clearer heads around him, and yours should be one of them. Presuming you do give a shit about doing your supposed job properly."  
  
"I do. I –"  
  
"You shouldn't have listened to him, then. What do you think the other servants would have to say about you if they noticed you out here without him?"  
  
"They –"  
  
"More of the same, I imagine, and there's enough gossip about Francis flying around this fucking palace, as it is. You shouldn't just be guarding his body, you know. Get back inside."  
  
When Alasdair starts to protest, Prince Lovino drops his hand to the pommel of the sword that is loosely hung at his hip. The steely glint in his eyes betrays that it isn't simple posturing, but a threat. "Now," he growls.  
  
Prince Lovino is barely taller than Dylan, and probably weighs substantially less. Even if he were to unsheath his sword, Alasdair could doubtless wrestle it from him in an instant.  
  
And then find himself pilloried in Mummer's Square in the next. On the off chance that Prince Lovino was feeling generous, anyway. More likely, he'd be hanged.  
  
Alasdair really has no choice but to submit, though he makes no attempt to disguise his displeasure at being forced into doing so. Prince Lovino ignores his huffing, grumbling, and dragging feet, however, and maintains his stony silence until they fetch up outside M. Jansen's office.  
  
"I'll be waiting out here," he says then, hand tightening around his sword. "Just in case you take it into your head to start wandering again."  
  
M. Jansen stumbles minutely over his reading when Alasdair slopes sullenly through the office door, a single syllable stutter before carrying on as fluently as ever before, and Prince Francis' own reaction is barely more demonstrative, besdes. His eyebrows quirk up an infinitesimal degree that nonetheless speaks the question that the brief parting of his lips does not.  
  
"Your cousin," Alasdair mouths in answer.  
  
The prince frowns, and though he turns his head back towards M. Jansen, his attention clearly doesn't follow. He replies to each of the requests posed to him seemingly without conscious thought; in quick succession, committing himself to several guild events that he will likely regret promising to attend as soon as he regains full command of his senses again.

Such mindless agreement, though thoroughly detrimental to the prince's social calendar, does have the benefit of hastening his business with M. Jansen, and their meeting is concluded with a swiftness that delights the secretary, judging by the rusty chuckle he gives at its conclusion.

"Three quarters of an hour," he says, sounding very proud of their efficiency. "I might be able to make the morning post today, Your Highness."

"A worthy accomplishment, I'm sure, _Monsieur_ ," the prince murmurs. "And that concludes our business for this morning?"

 "It does, Your Highness."

The prince doesn't even wait for M. Jansen to finish assaying his customary bow before launching himself out of his hated little chair. He bids Alasdair accompany him with a brusque nod, and then as soon as they move beyond M. Jansen's earshot, asks him, "You ran into some trouble with Lovino, I take it?"

"Aye, he thought I was setting a bad example for the other servants and practically frog-marched me out of the garden," Alasdair says, mirroring the prince's hushed tone.

"Didn't you tell him I'd given you permission to be there?"

"I tried, but he didn't really want to listen. Then he looked like he was going to go for his sword if I didn't obey him, and I wasn't willing to fight a fucking duel with him over it."

"You probably would have won, Corporal."

"Naw, I would have lost whichever way it went," Alasdair says. "You know how these things work, sir."

"I do," the prince says, shaking his head sadly. "Well, now, it's time for my walk" - he pivots on his heel and then strides off at high speed across the hallway - "and I was thinking that I might take in the view from -"

When they round the corner of the corridor which opens out onto the gardens at the closest point to the conservatory, the prince almost collides with his cousin, who is loitering there just as he promised he would; primed and gloweringly ready to throw his weight around in the interests of keeping Alasdair in what he believes is his place.

"Lovino, what a pleasant surprise," Prince Francis says, smiling thinly, "You're not usually up and about at such an early hour."

"It's fortunate for you that I was, seeing as though I caught your _guard,"_ Prince Lovino jerks his chin towards Alasdair, "shirking his duties."

"I told him he could have a short break. Stretch his legs, perhaps take in a little fresh air."

Prince Lovino snorts loudly, and then says in Gallian, "You know Maddie's been worrying herself sick about you. What if she'd seen him instead of me? He's supposed to be keeping you safe, and yet he has far more latitude than I've ever known you to give one of your servants." His top top lifts in a derisive curl. "It's no wonder people are talking about the two of you."

"People will always _talk_ , Lovino," Prince Francis replies, also using his mother tongue, "but they seldom say anything worth listening to. And they aren't now. I told you before, he isn't my lover."

"It definitely doesn't look that way. Not when you're letting him get away with doing whatever the fuck he likes, dressing him up like a doll, and -" Prince Lovino cuts himself off with a deep, rumbling groan that suggests that he has suddenly been struck by a troubling thought even before he continues with. "That's it, isn't it? You want to impress him, don't you? You're still _trying_ to bed him."

"No," Prince Francis says, very precisely, and thereafter adds something in High Imperial that is spoken so rapidly that Alasdair's sure he wouldn't have been able to follow it even if he did know more than a few scattered phrases of the language .

Prince Lovino answers with another groan, and then, "Seven hells, can you imagine what your father would do if he knew?"

"I'd prefer not to," Prince Francis says, his colour heightening, "and it seems pointless to speculate, in any case. How would he ever find out? I certainly don't intend to tell him. Do you?"

"I can't believe you need to ask," Prince Lovino says, his expression collapsing into something that may well be hurt, for all that it fails to soften his face to any great extent. "Of course I fucking don't. Maddie's not the only one who's concerned, Francis. I'm just trying to look out for you."

"Whilst I appreciate the thought," Prince Francis says, switching back into the trade tongue, "I can take care of myself. Good day, cousin." He gives Prince Lovino a bow, and then beckons for Alasdair to follow him without so much as glancing in his direction. "Come on, Corporal, we should continue our walk. I find that I'm in dire need of fresh air myself now."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that marks the end of the pieces I was able to work on last weekend, so the next update will probably be a little longer in coming than the previous three...


	46. Chapter 46

The prince is shivering. Not strongly enough to rock the bench or set his teeth to chattering, but Alasdair finds that the constant shimmer of motion in his peripheral vision is still sufficiently distracting that he can't fully concentrate on the task at hand.  
  
"Do you want to borrow my gloves again?" he asks dutifully but also a mite grudgingly, because the pair Mlle. Labelle had provided along with his new uniform are lined with soft, warm fur. He might not suffer from the cold as the prince does, but he's not entirely immune to it, and the temperature has failed to rise along with the sun.  
  
The prince's reply is completely devoid of the usual pleasantries. Just a bald, unadorned, "No."  
  
"You can go inside and warm up, if you like," Alasdair offers with an encouraging smile. "I'm sure Prince Lovino must be at his breakfast by now, so he'll likely never know you left me unattended."  
  
The prince doesn't even bother to open his mouth this time, and simply shakes his head. His shivering continues unabated.  
  
Lacking any better ideas of how to proceed, Alasdair shuffles a little closer to the prince, intending to share his body heat as he had the last time they had sat keeping a watch on the landscape together.  
  
This time, however, the prince reacts like he's pulled a knife on him, scrabbling backwards until his hip hits the bench's arm and he is forced to halt his retreat, if only to prevent himself from toppling straight over the top of it. He gives Alasdair a wounded look afterwards, as though he had actually been threatened with bodily harm in truth, instead of solely in his imagination.  
  
Hitherto, Alasdair had dismissed the prince's black looks and uncommunicativeness, thinking it nothing more than a reaction to the foul weather, but he suspects now that there must have been something more insidious behind them all along.  
  
"Are you all right, Francis?" he asks cautiously. "You've seemed a bit on edge ever since you had words with your cousin. Did he say something to upset you?"  
  
"You know exactly what he said to me," the prince says. "And I to him. Why do you need to ask?"  
  
"I don't speak High Imperial," Alasdair says, his patience crumbling. He had intended to restrain his curiosity and never bring it up again, but the harsh tone of the prince's voice and his supercilious sneer prove an irresistible goad to his temper. "I couldn't follow it all."  
  
The prince's expression shutters in an instant. "You shouldn't concern yourself about that."  
  
"But it was about me, wasn't it?" Alasdair asks. "Doesn't that give me the right to know?"  
  
"No," the prince says, resolutely turning his head aside. "It was about myself far more than anything else, and it's something I have no wish to share with you."  
  
Alasdair really has grown far too used to the prince's confidences, because it's ridiculous how much that _stings_. Ridiculous how it feels as though he's being denied something he should rightly be entitled to.  
  
In a bid to distract himself from the resentment, he resumes his surveillance of the conservatory. The sun has been swallowed up by clouds whilst he and the prince were talking, and the glass is transparent once more. Nothing is stirring inside, and beside him, the prince turns back into a morose, inert lump. He even stops shaking.  
  
As the prince's pocket watch chimes out half past the hour, a flock of birds descends upon the lawn in front of the conservatory, hunting for worms. They are shortly followed by a blue liveried gardener, who charges at them with an upraised rake in his hand and a loud battle cry on his lips. The wind carries away most of it, save for the words, "dirty buggers," which ring out as a clear as a bell. Alasdair chuckles at that. The prince does not.  
  
At the quarter to chime, nothing moves, but a little while later, a figure approaches the conservatory from the direction of the greenhouses. A man, well-built and light-haired, with a long, energetic stride. Even with the aid of the binoculars, Alasdair can't make out any finer details.  
  
"Is that your friend?" Alasdair asks, pointing towards him.  
  
The prince snatches the binoculars from him in lieu of a reply, and then lifts them immediately to his eyes. He gives a curt nod.  
  
"He's entering the conservatory now," he says after a moment. "Moving to the back..." He snarls in annoyance. "I've lost sight of him behind the apple tree. I assume he's going to the pots, though, and... Yes, he must have done. He's leaving now."  
  
The prince returns the binoculars just in time for Alasdair to see Ivan exiting the conservatory. There's something white in his hand, which he quickly tucks beneath his tunic before hurrying away out of sight.  
  
"Well, it looks as though he picked up your letters," he says, "so I guess no-one snuck in to steal them whilst I wasn't looking."  
  
"That doesn't mean that they weren't _read_ ," the prince says, finally sounding interested and engaged again; obviously eager to protect his friend from suspicion. "At least thirty minutes passed between you arriving in M. Jansen's office and us setting up camp here."  
  
"That's true enough," Alasdair says, sighing. They had had one chance to ascertain whether the letters were being intercepted in the conservatory, and it was ruined by Prince Lovino's officiousness. "Not much we can do about it, though. We'll just have to keep on following these damn letters as best we can from here.  
  
"Do you know what your friend will do with them now?"  
  
"He's never said," the prince says. "I imagine he'll go and find his sister as soon as possible, and give her the copy she's to take into town. She'll go to the head gardener with a fresh tale of familial woe, and he's under strict instructions to allow both her and her brother as much personal time as they need. I imagine she'll be setting out no later than noon.  
  
"As to what my friend does with _his_ copy? I can only presume that he takes it some place private in order to read and memorise it, and then I should think he destroys it."  
  
"Any idea where that place might be?"  
  
"His room, most likely."  
  
Alasdair snorts incredulously. "He can go into town freely, and he has his own room? I'm shocked no-one's ever worked out that you're playing favourites. Art told me that the gardeners all bunk four to a room, otherwise."  
  
"The _under-gardeners_ share," the prince says. "My friend is a _gardener_ , in sole charge of the plants in the conservatory, and that affords him his own quarters."  
  
"I suppose we're going to have to go and have a poke around in there; make sure he really is destroying his letters, or else keeping them safe under lock and key."  
  
The prince frowns in displeasure, so Alasdair quickly adds a placating, "Solely in the interests of thoroughness."  
  
"Of course," the prince says, his brows still lowered. "Though you'll have to find some way of doing that yourself, because –"  
  
"You can't be seen in the servants' quarters," Alasdair finishes for him. He doubts he'd be much more welcome himself, either, because what little he's seen of the palace's staff suggests they're highly stratified. The kitchen staff stick to themselves and have little to do with those who serve above stairs, who in turn seldom mix with the gardeners... Alasdair has to laugh at himself then for being so slow, because the answer's such an obvious one that he shouldn't have had to even pause to consider it.  
  
"What we need is another gardener," he says when the prince looks askance at him for his sudden outburst. "Come on, let's go and find Art."  


 

* * *

  
  
  
Arthur produces a marvel of bowing when Alasdair and the prince approach him, managing too angle his body in just such a way that not a single degree of it is directed towards Alasdair even though they're walking side by side.  
  
"Your brother wanted to talk to you, Mr Kirkland," the prince says in an overly bright tone Alasdair has never heard him use before. "Please, carry on. Pretend I'm not here."  
  
Despite this exhortation, Arthur keeps his gaze deferentially lowered even whilst the prince moves around to the far side of the compost heap, where he proceeds to feign great interest in the work of an ashen-faced young lass who's shovelling steaming piles of horse crap out of a wheelbarrow. She looks terrified enough to be contemplating flinging herself on after them just to escape him.  
  
"What's all this about, Art?" Alasdair asks, waving his hand below Arthur's ducked chin in an attempt to attract his attention. "Never thought I'd see the day that you'd be bowing and scraping to royalty."  
  
"I'm doing no such thing," Arthur says, sounding affronted. "Anyway, it's simple self-preservation. You know what they say about how Gallians treat undisciplined servants, and, besides, the man did agree to..." He gulps back his words as he lifts his head, his cheeks swelling and reddening with the trapped air. Eventually, it escapes his lips in a burst of explosive laughter. "And _I_ never thought I'd see the day that you'd be wearing a _Frog's_ _uniform_. Can you imagine what Cait would say if she saw you looking like that?"  
  
"'Good on you, Aly. I'd do the same for four silvers a day'?" Alasdair says. And she would, albeit only after a great deal of mocking and questioning of his common sense, but he doesn't want to give Arthur the satisfaction of acknowledging that.  
  
As he cannot refute that answer, Arthur chooses to ignore that he ever asked the question, just as he does most things that insist in running contrary to how he believes they should be.  
  
"Well, I suppose you have to earn your money somehow," Arthur says with a loud, disapproving sniff. "I've heard that you definitely don't deserve it for your guarding."  
  
Alasdair should ignore that remark himself, because it's probably nothing more than fourth- or fifth-hand gossip, twisted and exaggerated along the way, but instead it makes him want to lash out to defend himself, because there's something – there's _always something_ – about the way Arthur looks or sounds or fucking smells for all he knows that makes him bristle like no-one else can. "And why's that?"  
  
Arthur shrugs his shoulder. "Apparently, you left him to fend for himself at some ball he went to, and have taken to strolling around the garden when you should be working."  
  
That had certainly got around fast. As he'd likely be the last person to start gossiping with the staff, Alasdair probably shouldn't blame Prince Lovino for it, but he does all the same.  
  
"There was a reason for that. I –"  
  
"The popular opinion is that you got the job on your back, you know."  
  
Alasdair had thought he'd finally started to reach equanimity with the idea that people were thinking and saying such things about him, but nevertheless his blood still boils at hearing it; he still wants to track down every single person that's ever voiced that particular popular opinion and wrap his hands around their throat, starting with Arthur.  
  
He screws his eyes closed, tucks his fingers safely inside his clenched fists, and forces the heated feeling down until it's nothing more than a dull buzz of irritation at the base of his skull.  
  
P _eople will always talk, but they seldom say anything worth listening to_ , the prince had said earlier, and, deep down, Alasdair knows that's true. He knows that all that truly matters is that he and the prince are clear on where they stand with one another, and that he's really reacting to Arthur, his smug smile, and his aggravating need to come out on top of some weird, unspoken sort of competition that he's been playing at since they were children and persists in dragging Alasdair into against his will, judgement, and good sense.  
  
"You don't believe that, do you?" Alasdair asks once he's recovered enough equilibrium that he can speak rather than just scream in wordless rage.  
  
He may well see him as an opponent, or a rival, or simply someone that he doesn't like a great deal, but Arthur is, at the end of the day, Alasdair's brother, and understands him better than any popular opinion ever could.  
  
"I know it's complete shite," he says stoutly. "Which I've tried to tell people, but the truth's not half so interesting, I suppose. They refuse to listen."  
  
And cares for him far better, too.  
  
Alasdair tries to smile at him in gratitude, but Arthur, like the prince, seems to find himself inordinately fascinated by the compost, instead, and it's wasted on the empty air.  
  
"So, what did you want to talk to me about?" Arthur says at length, stabbing his shovel into the heap with a great deal of vigour but no obvious purpose.  
  
"I was wondering if you could take a look through the gardeners' rooms," Alasdair says. "See if you can find any papers, or scraps of papers in any of them."  
  
"Is this part of your investigation?"  
  
"Aye, and if you do find anything, don't read them, just keep them to give to me. I'll meet you here at nine o'clock sharp, all right?"  
  
Arthur gives a single nod of his head, firm enough that Alasdair's sure that he's both understood the gravity of the situation, and will follow his instructions down to the letter. They might have their differences, their clashes, but Alasdair trusts him just as much as Dylan when it comes to his work.  
  
"And what will you be doing with the rest of your afternoon?" Arthur asks.  
  
"I think His Highness and I will be taking a trip into town," Alasdair says.


	47. Chapter 47

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short update as I'm just easing my way back into writing this fic again after a long hiatus...

* * *

 

"You know," Alasdair says, "in the normal course of things, I'd be looking to make an arrest round about now."  
  
"Whatever for?" the prince asks.  
  
"Two blokes, lurking around in the undergrowth so they can stalk after some poor, unsuspecting woman? Sounds like a crime in progress, to me."  
  
"When you put it that way, it does seem very unsavoury. Well, if you have a better plan, I'm all ears."  
  
Although the prince's faint, encouraging smile appears to invite an honest answer, Alasdair knows that his words are nothing but hot air. He _had_ suggested a better plan; one that involved waiting in the relative comfort of the old, abandoned sentry box not even a quarter mile down the road from the palace for Ivan's sister to pass by, but that had already been soundly vetoed.  
  
The prince had insisted that the risk of their being seen there was far too great, never mind that, by his own admission, not one of his guards had stepped foot inside that little shack since he'd had a commodious stone guardhouse built at the palace gates themselves.  
  
Apparently it was infinitely safer and more practical for them to crouch in dense thicket of gorse and dogwood at the roadside, regardless of the fact that Alasdair has had a particularly sturdy branch painfully rammed against the small of his back for the past half hour, and that the patchy canopy of browning leaves above them offers scant protection against the fine but steady rain which has been falling just as long.  
  
"I thought you hated getting wet," he grumbles, shifting his weight yet again in a fruitless attempt to evade the branch's spirited endeavours towards boring its way through to his kidneys.  
  
The prince's smile becomes hatefully beatific. "I think it's much easier to bear when in pursuit of a good cause."  
  
"I think it's just as cold and unpleasant as it normally is. I'd still rather have had a roof over my head."  
  
"And _I_ was under the impression that _you_ liked being close to nature." In wary deference of the low-hanging brambles surrounding him on all four sides, the demonstrative twirl of the prince's hand is much less exuberant than any of his usual gestures. "Plants, and so on."  
  
The intimation that this spot was chosen, at least in part, for his supposed benefit makes Alasdair rue the decision to reveal his interest in botany to the prince. "I do, but not when they're trying their best to eviscerate me," he says. "Or stinging my arse."  
  
"You found that patch of nettles behind that little log, then?" the prince asks, wincing sympathetically.  
  
"Aye, I did." Alasdair scowls at him. "If you'd spotted it first, why didn't you—"  
  
"Hush," the prince whispers suddenly, cocking his head towards the road. "There's someone approaching."  
  
He shuffles forward and carefully parts the tangled vegetation to form a small window which he then presses his eye against. After a moment's tense, silent observation, he nods his head curtly.  
  
Alasdair's muscles and joints have grown sore and stiff from prolonged immobility, so it's far more than a moment's work to stand up straight again, let alone pick his way through the thorny confines of their hiding place with sufficient caution that he leaves only a few shreds of his shirt and one tuft of his hair behind to mark his passage. When he finally emerges onto the road, it is completely clear in both directions.  
  
"Are you sure it was her?" he asks the prince.  
  
"Quite sure." The prince inclines his towards the town. "Shall we?"  
  
If their damp and uncomfortable vigil had troubled _him_ at all, it's not evident in his fatuously wide grin or his dazzlingly bright eyes. As they set off walking together, he even whistles a brief snatch of some jaunty tune or other.  
  
"You're enjoying this, aren't you?" Alasdair asks him incredulously.  
  
The prince's cheeks turn a very abashed shade of pink. "A little," he admits. "As you so rightly pointed out, I might not be especially skilled at subterfuge, but I can't help but find my attempts at it somewhat exhilarating, all the same."  
  
He had certainly seemed to glean a great deal of enjoyment out of his preparations for this afternoon's enterprise. Thinking that speed was of the essence, Alasdair had done nothing more than change his boots and swap out his red and blue faux-military coat for his own jacket, but he had ended up sitting around twiddling his thumbs for the best part of an hour whilst the prince gleefully tore through all of the wardrobes in his dressing room and then paraded outfit after endless potential outfit in front of him for approval.  
  
The clothes he had eventually settled upon are very similar in both cut and quality to those that Alasdair's own brothers habitually wear: a loose, off-white shirt, shapeless cloth cap, dark woollen topcoat, and brown, homespun trousers. He had once said that he would be able to blend in with Old Town's denizens if needs be, but Alasdair had thought it nothing but an idle boast. He wouldn't have guessed that he could manage a disguise so seamless.  
  
"You never did get around to telling me why in the hells you own clothes like _that_ ," he says.  
  
"I..." The prince's blush deepens, and he seemingly discovers a intense fascination with the dull horn buttons at his cuffs. "Lord Mason had an informal little costume party a couple of months ago, and I..."  
  
"Decided to go dressed as a commoner," Alasdair finishes in his stead when his lengthy hesitation makes it clear that he is either unwilling or unable to do so himself. "You definitely didn't scrimp on the details. It's very convincing."  
  
"I'm ashamed to admit that I even... I even tried to affect an Old Town accent for the sake of verisimilitude."  
  
Alasdair cringes along with him. "Gods, I imagine hearing that would be as painful for me as listening to me speak Gallian is for you."  
  
"To say that you'd never heard the native accent before we met, I think you do very well," the prince says stoutly.  
  
To Alasdair's astonishment, he gives every indication in voice and expression of being sincere. "That's complete crap, Francis," he says. "You laugh at me every time I try!"  
  
"I have never laughed," the prince says, sounding mortally offended. "I may have smiled once or twice, but only because..." The lie is apparently too great for either his conscience or breath to sustain, and it trails off into a desperate scanning of the road ahead which is rewarded in short order by the sight of their quarry rounding a small copse of trees not more than a few hundred feet away.  
  
"Though I would of course prefer to continue our conversation," he then lies in a hushed tone, "I fear we will be overheard if we do not stay quiet, given how close we are to my friend's sister now."  
  
Infuriatingly enough, he's right, so Alasdair does bite his tongue, but only in abeyance. If the prince hopes that their fledgling _argument_ will be forgotten in the ensuing silence, then he is doomed to be disappointed.  


 

* * *

  
  
  
As though in an act of penance, the prince assays his so-called Old Town accent on the first unfortunate soul who bids him good day once they pass through the Brass House gate.  
  
It is, as Alasdair suspected it would be, terrible and unconvincing; as stagily overwrought and near unintelligible as those attempted by the troupe of travelling actors from Londinium Alasdair had watched butcher an otherwise perfectly good play about King Llewellyn's last stand the year before.  
  
It is an impression obviously shared by the man the prince had greeted, who stares at him with such blank incomprehension that it's clear he isn't sure whether or not the greeting he'd heard had actually been spoken in Trade.  
  
Taking pity on both him and the prince, who appears thoroughly embarrassed, Alasdair says, "He's got a cold." When the man continues to look unconvinced, he quickly adds, "And he's from Mancunium."  
  
The man gives a relieved smile and nods as though this explains everything, and then, after a courteous touch to the brim of his hat, takes his leave of them.  
  
"There," the prince says with conviction once the man has moved out of earshot, "you can laugh as much as you like now. I hope this might make us even on that score?"  
  
"Naw," Alasdair says, not wanting to let him get off _that_ easily as he has some rolling of the eyes and smirking to atone for, too. "I've spoken Gallian to you five times. That's hardly even scratched the surface."  
  
"Very well, I'll humiliate myself four more times, if that's what it takes to please you." Though the furrowing of the prince's brow suggests annoyance, it is the only part of his face that does. "But on our return journey. We are still trying to be inconspicuous, remember?"  
  
He should perhaps have considered that before trying out his amateur theatrics on the largely blameless populace, but Alasdair doesn't think it would have made any odds, either way.  
  
Katyusha seems almost oblivious to everything around her; cutting a determined path so straight and unwavering that the crowds of pedestrians along King Llewellyn's Way might as well be as insubstantial as mist. She keeps her head bowed as she walks, her hands close to her sides, and it's clear even from the careful distance Alasdair and the prince keep from her that she never passes close enough to anyone that she could conceivably hand over the letter she carries.  
  
A letter that does not leave the pocket of her coat until she's standing at the front door of the empty house that the prince had addressed it to. She looks at it but once, presumably double-checking that she has the correct street name and number, before dropping it through the letterbox.  
  
"That was anticlimactic," Alasdair observes as he watches her hurry away again.  
  
"She performed her task exactly as I expected she would. I'd say it was satisfying," the prince says, beaming happily. "No, gratifying. I knew she couldn't possibly be involved with this wretched business."  
  
"That's all well and good, but it does mean we're no closer to finding out who _is_."  
  
"But it's progress, nevertheless." The prince shrugs. "Our suspect list is one shorter."  
  
"Aye," Alasdair concedes; grudgingly, because it doesn't really feel to him like they've even taken another full step forward. "Come on, I suppose we'd best get back to the palace and see if Art can help us strike your friend's name from that list, too."


	48. Chapter 48

"I hope it wouldn't be too much of an imposition if I asked you to keep our rendezvous with your brother alone?" the prince had said as the mantel clock in his sitting room chimed out quarter to the hour. "I'm afraid I have a veritable mountain of correspondence that needs my attention tonight."  
  
The convenient timing of this sudden recollection of professional obligations was suspicious enough that Alasdair recognised it as a lie even before the prince's rising colour and averted gaze made it obvious in a way he could not begin to hide.  
  
He had been expecting some sort of excuse to be forthcoming ever since the afternoon's light showers had ceded the skies to the evening's storm clouds. The heavy rain rattling against the room's windowpanes had caused the prince to pause in his reading more than once, whereupon he would look towards them with a pensiveness that occasionally bordered on horror.  
  
The sole surprise was that he had not made one sooner.  
  
Alasdair had replied in a exaggeratedly grave tone that of course, His Highness' very important governing work must take precedence, and, of course, his time was infinitely more precious than that of a lowly guard, but only because he couldn't stomach the thought of simply nodding in servile acquiescence and letting the falsehood pass without comment.  
  
Whilst he'd found some satisfaction in the prince's guilty expression and stammered assurances that their respective tasks were undoubtedly of equal merit, he waved aside the suggestion that the prince's work could, on reflection, be postponed as he had already decided that his own would be far simpler absent a constant litany of complaints about being cold and wet throughout. The prince had yielded swiftly and easily, then – his murmured apologies sounding more relieved than penitent – and at the time it had felt like a victory for good sense.  
  
A mere twenty minutes later, it has become abundantly clear that if there had been any good sense on display, then it was all on the prince's side.  
  
Although the prince had offered him the use of whichever of his coats took his fancy, Alasdair could tell at a glance that even the most capaciously cut of them wouldn't accommodate the span of his shoulders, never mind button across his chest, so he had once again had to make do with his own jacket.  
  
He had bought it from an old sailor at the Antler who'd claimed that the linseed oil and wax he'd rubbed into the fabric would more than justify the silver coin he was asking for the battered old thing. And for the first year, it did, but the waxy coating wore away just as rapidly as the elbows, and it now serves as no better protection against the elements than any of the rest of Alasdair's moth-eaten wardrobe.  
  
Water has soaked through both it and his trousers, seeping all the way down to his undershirt and drawers, which are clinging close and clammy against his skin. It drips in a steady stream from the end of his nose and the tips of his eyelashes, blurring his eyes to such an extent that he can see for no more than a foot or so ahead of him, despite the best efforts of the little covered oil lamp that the prince had pressed upon him before he left the palace.  
  
His obscured vision conspires with roar of the wind buffeting against his head to mask his brother's approach right up until he is close enough to lay a hand on his arm.  
  
Though the gentleness of Arthur's touch suggests some degree of solicitude, his voice betrays nothing but annoyance.  
  
"Why in the hells have you brought a light with you?" he snaps. "I would have thought that you'd make at least a token effort to be discreet."  
  
Alasdair swipes at his eyes with the heels of his palms until his brother's form swims into something approaching focus. He's wearing a wide brimmed hat and the long, rubberised raincoat that Alasdair had scoffed at him spending a half-gold on the previous summer. It's just as ugly and cumbersome-looking as it was then, but as he appears to be enviably snug and dry nonetheless, such mockery seems both churlish and short-sighted in retrospect.  
  
Not that he would ever say as much to Arthur, as he knows full well that admitting his mistake would be taken as a sign of weakness and thus trotted out to score points in their arguments thenceforth and evermore.  
  
"It's howling a gale, and I can't see my hand in front of my fucking face; I doubt anyone's noticed," he says instead, because anger and harsh words have always been more forgivable than honesty between the two of them. "And the prince insisted on the lamp. I could hardly tell him no, could I?"  
  
"Where is His Highness, anyhow? I wanted to give him this personally," Arthur says, nodding towards the little satchel he's holding.  
  
"He's too nesh for weather like this." Alasdair shrugs. "It's best he stays indoors, otherwise I'd never hear the end of it."  
  
Arthur's clutches the bag close to his chest. "The longer I've had to think on this, the more I've felt I... I'm really not comfortable with it. At least some of these documents will be very personal letters. Surely even we servants should be allowed at least a small degree of privacy?"  
  
"Aye, you should. That'd be just as true if you handed them over to the prince instead of me, though."  
  
"I know, but..." Arthur smiles wryly. "Unfortunate as we both may find it, His Highness would be well within his rights to read whatever he damn well likes. We might rail at the injustice of it all amongst ourselves, but as long as he holds the purse strings, not a one of us would dare say anything to his face. Whereas you..."  
  
"I'm investigating a murder, Art; I can't afford to be squeamish," Alasdair says, though even as he speaks the words he wonders if he truly believes them. Some things, perhaps, should be sacrosanct, no matter how laudable the cause. Still, it was done now, and too late for regrets. "I don't like it any more than you do, but I wouldn't be able to carry on my investigation otherwise."  
  
Arthur prevaricates for a moment longer, but eventually relinquishes his hold on the bag. He frowns as Alasdair takes it from him, and then says, "The gardeners are... They're all good people, Aly. Do you really think that one of them is involved in your case?"  
  
"I don't know what to think yet," Alasdair says, "but what I'm _hoping_ is that these letters will prove you right."

 

 

* * *

  
  
  
As soon as he steps foot through the door to the prince's chambers, the man himself pounces on him, brandishing a towel.  
  
"You're drenched," he says as he passes it to Alasdair. He sounds almost chiding, as though this deplorable state of affairs can be attributed to some form of wilful misbehaviour on Alasdair's part.  
  
"It is pouring down, Francis," Alasdair says, rubbing experimentally at his hair with the towel. It soaks through in seconds. "Makes it kind of hard to avoid getting wet."  
  
"It would have been _easier_ if you hadn't been kept waiting so long." The prince clucks his tongue disapprovingly. "I assume your brother _was_ late to your meeting. You were out there for almost an hour."  
  
The implicit accusation and the unfamiliar urge to protect Arthur from it are both equally aggravating, and Alasdair can't quite hold the resulting growl back from his voice as he says, "It wasn't his fault. One of the greenhouses has sprung a leak, and they needed all hands on deck to save your bloody grape vines, apparently. And it's only a bit of water, in any case. I'll be all right soon enough. I won't dissolve."  
  
The prince's face softens slightly. "Be that as it may, you must be freezing, all the same. Come, I built up the fire whilst you were gone."  
  
The grip he sets around Alasdair's wrist is light but insistent, urging him towards the prince's bedchamber and thence to the brocaded armchair, which has been pulled up close to the hearth.  
  
It's only after he's sat there for a moment or two that Alasdair realises just how cold he had truly been. His skin tingles and stings as the blood rushes to it once more, his joints throb as they thaw, and the muscles at the hinge of his jaw begin to twitch spasmodically, setting his teeth to chattering.  
  
The noise seems to set the prince's nerves on edge, too, judging by his frown. "Here," he says brusquely, dropping a neatly folded quilt and two more towels onto Alasdair's lap. "These should help. And you can't possibly be comfortable until you change out of those wet clothes. I hope you'll forgive the intrusion, but I took the liberty of fetching a fresh nightshirt from your wardrobe."  
  
"It's fine," Alasdair says, "but I think it'd be best if I go and put it on in my room." He tries to get to his feet, but the instant he leans away from the fire, he's wracked with uncontrollable shivers. Braving the unheated passageway between the prince's bedroom and his own suddenly seems even more insupportable than baring his skin in the man's presence again. "Or you could go and do... something else for a little while? Five minutes or so, maybe? You must have some letters that still need signing. An hour wasn't nearly enough time to get through an entire mountain of them, I'd wager."  
  
A faint blush kisses the prince's cheeks. "I... Yes, of course. I'll leave you to it," he says, then adds, a little more sternly, "But for five minutes, and no more. You're very pale, Aly. I'm not sure it's wise for you to be on your own right now."  
  
"If I come over faint and topple headfirst into the fireplace, I'll make sure to scream loud enough that you can hear me in the study, okay?"  
  
The prince does not look particularly reassured, but he retreats, nevertheless. Alasdair listens to his footsteps until they fade away to a safe distance, and then strips off his shirts and trousers as quickly as his shaking hands will allow. The drawers give him slightly more pause, but the lure of the dry nightshirt is sufficiently compelling that it soon overcomes his natural inclination towards modesty.  
  
By the time the prince returns – his tread cautious and his eyes demurely lowered – Alasdair is safely dressed and wrapped tight in the quilt from throat to ankle.  
  
"Now that your outside has been taken care of," the prince says as he makes his diffident approach. "this should warm your insides, too."  
  
He hands him a small cut glass tumbler, warm to the touch and half filled with clear amber liquid. It smells overwhelmingly smoky, but there's a clearer, sharper note cutting through that mellow scent that Alasdair thinks might be lemon.  
  
"I didn't know you had any whisky," he says.  
  
"I have a whole case," the prince says, smiling faintly. "Or, more accurately, _you_ have a whole case. I hope you don't mind that I opened a bottle. Another liberty, but one I thought you might appreciate."  
  
Alasdair takes a small sip from the glass, rolling the whisky around in his mouth to savour its sweet hints of vanilla and honey before he swallows it down. It feels to flow down into the very core of him, heating his entire body from within.  
  
"I don't mind at all," he says, sinking deeper into his seat as his bones start to melt. "Thank you, Francis."  
  
The prince's smile dimples, and his right hand, still hovering close to Alasdair's after giving him the whisky, inches a little closer. Just before they make contact, however, he appears to think better of the idea, and with a brisk shake of his head, takes a step back from the armchair and grabs hold of Arthur's satchel.  
  
"You just relax and enjoy it," he says gruffly. "I'll check through the documents your brother recovered."  
  
Alasdair watches the prince seat himself at his desk, but then the drowsy weight of his eyelids becomes too arduous to endure, and for a time, everything is soft and dark and still, the silence broken only by the quiet crackle of the flames and the rustling of paper.  
  
"Ah, this is far more distasteful than I'd anticipated," the prince says eventually. "There are letters here that I'm certain the recipients would never want another soul to see. I would have preferred not to have to see them myself, but I can't help but think we made the right decision, even so, because this was also amongst them."  
  
As he doesn't see fit to clarify what _this_ might be, Alasdair has to reluctantly crack open his eyes. The prince is holding aloft a small scrap of paper, charred around the edges.  
  
"There's enough of it left that I can tell it's a part of the letter I sent to my friend," he says. "He must have burnt it as soon as he had the chance. Again, just as I expected he would."  
  
He sounds and looks so honestly delighted, so thoroughly gratified by this evidence of Ivan's trustworthiness, that Alasdair can't bring himself to remind him in the very moment of his triumph that it as much a condemnation as it is an exoneration. They have no more leads to follow, save one. Nothing more to hope for the investigation than that their own letters have, despite the careful watch they had kept on them, somehow been intercepted by someone as yet unsuspected.  
  
That single scrap of paper may have doomed them both to a confrontation with a murderer in three days' time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The events of [Deva Victrix: The Bard](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3493793) take place between the end of this chapter and the beginning of the next.


	49. Chapter 49

The day of Mr Horton's supposed rescue dawns clear, unseasonably warm, and far sooner than Alasdair feels the normal passage of time can possibly account for.  
  
For the previous three, the prince had arbitrated disputes, listened to petitions, and meddled in Dylan's love life with such enthusiasm and dedication of purpose that Alasdair might have believed him unconcerned by the task ahead of them had he not been devoting himself to distraction just as assiduously, and, he presumes, for exactly the same reasons.  
  
Fretting over the inevitable wouldn't have delayed or deferred it, only made every minute and hour leading up to it a slow and insidious torture.  
  
Their unspoken mutual accord to avoid the topic might have made the waiting easier, but the sudden reality of it seems all the more shocking as a consequence; an unexpected moment that has caught Alasdair both incognisant and underprepared.  
  
He and the prince breakfast together in the chamber's sitting room in their now familiar way, although their conversation is a great deal more desultory than it has tended to be recently. The plump, golden brioche that had smelt so appetising and looked so appealing on Alasdair's plate both feels and tastes like little better than cardboard in his mouth. He has to force himself to swallow it, and it then settles as heavily as a lump of lead behind his breastbone.  
  
The prince's staring should be familiar, too, but there's something subtly different about his gaze that makes Alasdair uneasy rather than faintly embarrassed by it as he normally is. Something preoccupied and inward-facing, and Alasdair has to wonder if the man is actually seeing him at all.  
  
He doesn't even pretend to have any appetite, and after Alasdair has choked down two of the sweet rolls and a half cup of tea, he pushes his own plate away completely untouched.  
  
"We're exactly on schedule for once," he says without inflection. "M. Jansen will no doubt be delighted."  
  
The secretary, at least, is his usual self this morning, and greets their punctual arrival at his office with complete dispassion.  
  
And if he notices the tired drag of his employer's voice or his sickly pale complexion, they do not inspire him towards compassion, as he neither inquires after his health nor takes any pity on him. The governor's official correspondence is read through with the same ruthless speed and efficiency as it ever is, with no quarter given to the prince's need to pause and gather thoughts that Alasdair assumes persist on wandering far beyond the confines of the little room just as his own do.  
  
Even so, the prince keeps sufficient of his wits about him that the meeting concludes at an earlier enough hour to allow for the ride he has denied himself of late in favour of making other people's business his own.  
  
Before he leaves for the stables, he bends his head to Alasdair's ear and, in a low, ardent tone, exhorts him to, "Prepare yourself. We will need to leave no later than ten o'clock."  
  
Alasdair would very much like to follow his advice, but though he retires to the privacy of his bedroom with that aim in mind, he discovers that he hasn't the faintest idea of how to do so.  
  
He changes out of his uniform and into a plain shirt and trousers, then buckles the beautiful Imperial sword the prince had lent him around his waist. No more than a minute later, he tears it off again and then sets it carefully aside.  
  
Although it feels unnatural – not to mention incredibly foolish – to contemplate facing a criminal unarmed, a sword worn openly on Old Town's streets by someone other than a properly armoured guard will attract exactly the sort of attention he will want to avoid.

That decided, he dons his boots and his jacket, but thereafter no particular action is readily apparent as the correct one to take.  
  
How does a person prepare themselves for the possibility that they might die that day?  
  
He should perhaps have asked Caitlin, instead of peevishly avoiding talking to her about military matters, or even the prince, had not the subject seemed too fraught with the potential for upset to approach if he did not first raise it himself. And Alasdair himself has not been in genuine fear for his life since the night twelve years ago when he had his future torn from him with a six inch blade , and thus his mind remains a perfect blank.  
  
So he simply sits on the end of his bed and stares out of his window, his head empty of everything save for the slow, stately passage of the clouds as they drift across the sky, until a loud slam of the outer chamber door announces the prince's return.  
  
Although Alasdair hears him step near, he does not turn towards him, and the prince offers no greeting for a long while afterwards.  
  
Even then, it's barely comprehensible, gasped out in a single rush of breath, and he doesn't give Alasdair fair chance to return it before saying, "I've been thinking—"  
  
"No, we'll do it exactly like we planned," Alasdair interrupts him, because he can already make a good guess at what had been occupying the prince's thoughts, and it's not worth the air he'd expend on speaking it aloud. "For fuck's sake, you're a governor. I know you don't much care for the concept, but I'm much more expendable than you are.  
  
"And in any case" – he attempts a smile but the best he can manage is so brittle that it quickly collapses – "I can barely shoot straight. It's only sensible that _you're_ the one on the rooftop, trying to bring down the bastard before they can put a hole in me, and _I'm_..."  
  
"The bait," the prince finishes for him, snarling the words like a curse.  
  
He hurries forward then, and crouches down in front of Alasdair as he had once before. And, as he did then, he moulds his palms to the curve of Alasdair's knees. His hands are trembling slightly, and colder than they should be given the brightness of the sun outside. Alasdair places his own hands over them and chafes them a little, wanting to lend the prince some of his own warmth.  
  
The prince watches the movement with every indication that the entirety of his attention is caught by it, so it comes as something of a surprise when he eventually says, "You're not expendable to me. Not at all."  
  
It seems pointless to argue. They've circled around this choice countless times and it's never been settled to either of their satisfactions.  
  
"I know," Alasdair says.  
  
"And you're not expendable to your brothers, or anyone else who loves you."  
  
"I know, but what else can we do? There's only the two of us, Francis. We can't both stay out of harm's way."  
  
The prince opens his mouth, but does not answer. At this short distance, his eyes appear clouded, darkened to a dull grey, and his face is pinched; skin drawn tight and bloodless across the narrow lines of his cheekbones.  
  
He looks terrified, which is an odd thing to take comfort in, but trying to make the world seem kinder for someone else is something Alasdair _does_ have a great deal of experience with.  
  
He hooks one arm around the back of the prince's neck and starts to pull him closer.  
  
At first, the prince resists the embrace, but it's only for a fraction of a instant before he lets his head drop against Alasdair's shoulder just as Dylan would. Reflexively, Alasdair raises his other hand to cup the prince's head. His hair is far softer than he'd never thought to imagine.  
  
"You're pretty observant, right?" Alasdair asks in the smooth, gentle tone he'd perfected over many long nights sitting up with Michael when he took ill as a child. "Notwithstanding your blind spot for people's names."  
  
He receives a vaguely acquiescent hum in reply.  
  
"And you're a good shot?"  
  
"Excellent."  
  
"And so modest, too." Alasdair chuckles. "Well, then I've got nothing to worry about, have I? And even if they do somehow manage to get one of those darts in me, who's to say it'll do me much harm, anyway. Mrs Spenser survived it, and she's less than half my size. I should think it'd take a hell of a lot of poison to take a big bastard like me down.  
  
"And besides," he says, giving the prince a gentle squeeze before easing his arms away from him again, "I've been around herbs and the like my entire life. I should think I've probably built up an immunity to them by now. However things pan out, I'm sure I'll be fine."

 

 

* * *

  
  
  
Quarter to twelve.  
  
Twenty minutes until Ivan will arrive, expecting to meet Mr Horton. Ten minutes past the time stated in the letter Katyusha had delivered to an empty house.  
  
Alasdair puts his watch back in his pocket. He tugs the scarf the prince had recommended he wear a little higher up the bridge of his nose. Tugs the brim of his hat a little further down over his eyes.  
  
He tilts his head towards the rooftops that border the left-hand side of the alleyway, but all has been quiet there since the prince finished manoeuvring himself into position; crouched behind a crooked chimney that looks poised to collapse into rubble at the merest tap. On the right-hand side, there is still nothing but silence.  
  
Ahead of him, King Llewellyn's Way teems with distant life. Two streets to the west, Gabriella will be treating boils, sniffles, and aching stomachs in her clinic.  
  
Just two streets. The prince will surely be able to drag even his oversized carcass that far if worse comes to worst.  
  
Alasdair hurriedly pulls out his watch once more.

 

_Nineteen minutes. Eleven._

 

He has never known time to crawl so slowly before. Normally, he would endeavour to hasten its passage with his numbers and lists, but he can't seem to recall anything beyond _quarente_ or Queen Angharad the third.  
  
And his feet are sore. The small of his back is throbbing. Every single one of his muscles is aching from this enforced inertia. He wants to walk, run, fucking _punch_ something for preference, but he has to present as tempting a bloody target as he possibly can, so he stays compliantly still.  


_Eighteen minutes. Twelve._

  
  
When he looks away from the watch's face, he catches sight of something moving out of the corner of his right eye.  
  
A dark flicker.  
  
Before he can shout a warning to the prince, he's struck on the side of neck; a small, sharp shock of pain like an insect bite. Alasdair slaps at the source of it on instinct.  
  
When he lifts his hand away again, there is a dart nestled in the palm of his hand.  
  
The mismatched feathers that make up its long tail are so incongruously bight and cheerful that it almost looks like a child's toy. Alasdair feels the urge to laugh at it, but he can't quite catch enough breath. His throat is too narrow.  
  
His chest is narrowing, too; pressing down so hard on his lungs that they can't expand. His stomach clenches, and his guts spasm in sympathy.  
  
As though through layers of swaddling cotton wound around his head, he hears the muffled retort of what could well be a gunshot.  
  
He glances upwards, hoping that he might see the murderer's body as it plummets to the cobbles below, but all there is above him is the rapidly dimming sky,  
  
_The sun must be eclipsing_ , is his final coherent thought before he falls down into the darkness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And so ends the penultimate act of this story. The end is in sight at last!
> 
> ... Admittedly, it might well be a few tens of thousands of words away still, but it's in sight nevertheless.


	50. Chapter 50

The darkness begins to lift, suffused with a warm orange glow, and with that slow dawn comes sound; indistinct at first, little more than a meaningless susurruration, but the low, rumbling hum soon resolves itself into a familiar voice, and then recognisable words.  
  
He hears his name.  
  
"Aye," he says, and he wants to add, 'I'm here,' or 'I'm awake,' but his mouth is too parched, his throat stingingly raw, so all he can manage is a dry, retching cough.  
  
There are hands on him in an instant. A cool palm at his brow, two fingers laid against the pulse point at his wrist.  
  
"Your temperature seems normal," Gabriella says, and if she'd been given cause to worry about that before, it's not evident in her tone, which is composed and calmly professional. "And your pulse is strong."  
  
The hands withdraw and something smooth and cold is pressed against his bottom lip. A glass. The chill of the ice water it holds not only sooths the burn of his throat but helps to clear the lingering fog from his mind, and by the time he's drained the glass dry, he feels strong enough – with the aid of Gabriella's steadying arm around his shoulders but against her protests – to push himself up into a sitting position.  
  
He cautiously slits open his eyes.  
  
The light is so bright that it dazzles him for a moment, but Gabriella's face gradually swims into focus from the bleary swirl of oversaturated colours and muddied shadows. Though her expression is serene, the thin skin below her eyes is bruised with tiredness.  
  
"How are you feeling?" she asks.  
  
"Okay," Alasdair says instinctively, even though he feels much as he did whenever he awoke from one of the feverish dreams that often plagued him when he was recovering from his knife wound: wrung out and worn thin, his head and joints and even his teeth throbbing in tandem with his racing heart. "I'll live."  
  
"I should be the one telling _you_ that," Gabriella says. "But you're right; as long as you can restrain yourself from leaping in front of any more poisoned darts, I think you'll be fine."  
  
Alasdair touches the side of his neck experimentally. There's a slightly tender spot there, about the size of a copper piece. He would have expected it to still be painful. "Was I out long?" he asks.  
  
"Well, it is 1852 now," Michael's voice pipes up before Gabriella can answer.  
  
Alasdair's stomach pitches nauseatingly. "I've been unconscious for two years?"  
  
"No," Dylan says, a little tartly and, Alasdair imagines, accompanied by a disapproving glare in Michael's direction. "It hasn't even been half a day. It's just gone eleven o'clock."  
  
Alasdair rolls his head unsteadily against the stack of firm pillows piled at his back. Michael and Dylan are sitting on the edge of the next bed along in the row to his, both cadaverously pale and scowling, and, to his surprise, Arthur is leaning against its headboard. Whomsoever had sent word for him to journey down from the palace had clearly made the summons sound like a matter of life and death as he's still dressed in his blue servant's tunic, and there are grass stains on hands, clumps of dried mud clinging to the knees of his trousers,  
  
Alasdair glances to his left. The bed on that side is empty. His stomach rolls again.  
  
"Where's Francis?" he asks.  
  
"Upstairs, angrily making tea for us all," Gabriella says.  
  
"Angrily?"  
  
"I thought it would be better for his peace of mind and our nerves if he took a break from brooding at your bedside and swearing bloody vengeance on your attacker. He doesn't seem to agree, though."  
  
"But he's unhurt?"  
  
"Aye, much to his chagrin." Gabriella smiles wryly. "I should go and tell him that you're awake before he has chance to take out his frustrations on my tea service."  
  
As soon as she takes her leave, Dylan leans forward and enfolds Alasdair's wrist in a bruisingly firm grip. "Are you really feeling okay?" he asks, his voice breathy and wavering with anxiety.  
  
Alasdair tries to nod, but the movement makes his gorge rise. "A little woozy," he rasps out. "Weak. Not dead, though. That's the main thing."  
  
"Which is down to nothing but pure, dumb luck, in any case." Arthur sniffs disdainfully. "Gabs said that that dart struck you deeper than either Spenser or Martinez."  
  
"Really?" Even if Alasdair concentrates all of his attention on the puncture mark, he can still sense nothing more than the dull ache of an incipient bruise. "I can barely even feel where it hit me."  
  
"Good old Arnica tincture," Dylan says with a humourless chuckle. "We had to put some on your palm, too."  
  
He gestures towards Alasdair's left hand, and when Alasdair flips it over, he sees three narrow gouges scored between his heart and life lines, cutting deep enough to break through the skin in several places.  
  
"You were clutching that dart so tightly that Gabs had to... She practically had to break your fingers to get you to let go of it."  
  
"I knew how important it was to keep hold of it," Alasdair says, although he can't recall even the vaguest shape of his thoughts immediately following the attack, he's certain that preservation of evidence must have been paramount amongst them. "You can do some more of your tests on it now."  
  
"I will, but I'm not sure that there's anything—"  
  
Dylan is interrupted by the sound of hurried footsteps thundering down the stairs which lead from Gabriella's apartment. They pause upon reaching the bottom, and in the short silence that follows, Dylan smiles softly, Arthur and Michael roll their eyes, and Alasdair imagines Francis is putting his clothes and hair to rights, because of course it just wouldn't be done to look unkempt even after a close brush with death.  
  
Nevertheless, when the door at the back of the ward does eventually swing open and Francis approaches them at a sedate and measured pace, it's obvious at the most cursory of glances that his efforts have largely been in vain.  
  
His queue is uncharacteristically sloppy, and a few loose curls have spilled free to frame a brow that is more deeply furrowed than Alasdair has ever seen it before. His frockcoat is dusty, its lapels skewed, and his tan breeches are smudged with dark spots of what appears to be soot.  
  
Dylan gives Alasdair's wrist a light squeeze. "Well, we should be getting a move on."  
  
"Yes," Arthur agrees with alacrity. "No doubt Gabs will be needing a hand with that tea."  
  
"You don't need to—"  
  
All three of his brothers are gone before Alasdair can finish getting his next word out, almost falling over each other in their haste to exit the room.  
  
Francis' gaze is impassive as he watches their agitated escape, and it warms not one iota when it shifts in Alasdair's direction thereafter. In fact, it seems to pass straight through his body to the starched sheets beneath without igniting a single spark of recognition.  
  
He moves forward to within a foot or so of Alasdair's bedside and then stops, his eyes meeting Alasdair's for a instant before dropping diffidently to his feet. He swallows heavily.  
  
Alasdair sighs. "Whatever it is you want to do, just get it out of the way so we can talk, all right?"  
  
He had expected Francis to touch his brow like Gabriella did, or perhaps clasp his hand, but though he does reach out and take gentle hold of it, he then bends his head to press a brief, chaste kiss to Alasdair's injured palm.  
  
His lips are rough and chapped; his stubble long enough to bristle. It's an odd sensation, but not unpleasant.  
  
Alasdair flushes and tugs his hand free, then tucks it safely out of sight beneath his coverlet. "Got it all out of your system?" he asks, directing the question towards the crisp, creamy fabric.  
  
"For the moment." Francis' laughter is slightly shrill, holding a note that is poised on the very edge of hysteria. "I won't insult you by asking how you're faring. You look dreadful."  
  
Alasdair would never have guessed that his brothers would prove more apt to want to spare his feelings on that score. He frowns. "I should think there aren't that many that are at their best after they've just recovered from being _poisoned_ , Francis."  
  
"I didn't mean..." Francis falls back a couple of steps and then sinks down onto the bed on which Dylan and Michael had perched themselves before him. "It wasn't meant as a disparagement, merely an observation. And I'm sorrier than I can possibly say to see you like this."  
  
"It's hardly your fault," Alasdair says with a shrug.  
  
"It is," Francis insists vehemently. "I was... distracted at exactly the wrong time, and though I took a shot at your assailant, it went wide. I pursued them for a time, but they were too quick for me and I'm afraid... I'm afraid they eluded me in the end. Again, I'm so, so sorry, though I suppose my apologies must ring terribly hollow by now."  
  
Alasdair's heart sinks, heavy with disappointment, but he doubts it is as weighty as Francis' own, even so. His entire frame has bowed under it, teetering perilously close to complete collapse.  
  
"So you chased them over the rooftops, then?" Alasdair asks, forcing a measure of joviality into his voice that he doesn't really feel.  
  
Francis shoots him a puzzled look. "Yes, but I don't see what—"  
  
"You'll have to make sure to tell Mikey all about it. He'll be delighted. I've never done enough of that sort of thing for his tastes."  
  
No smile rewards Alasdair's efforts. Francis' mouth does quirk upwards a little at one corner, but it's soon hidden when he drops his head down into his hands. "What are we going to do, Aly?" he asks in a muffled whisper. "That was our last, best hope, and I failed us both, not to mention Mr Martinez and Mrs Spenser."  
  
"There's plenty more we can do," Alasdair reassures him, but when Francis quite rightly asks him, "Such as?" he has no ready answer to give.  
  
Save one, though even now he's not yet certain that he's either desperate or brave enough to suggest it.


	51. Chapter 51

Alasdair breakfasts on a bland mush of indeterminate origin that Gabriella assures him is both nourishing and healthful despite its unfortunate resemblance to the contents of a recently used privy. It tastes little better than it looks, but he's so ravenously hungry that he devours every last morsel with as much relish as the finest dishes sampled at Francis' table.  
  
The very moment he sets the empty bowl aside, Gabriella begins poking and prodding him all over again. She pulls down his lower eyelids to check their colour; sticks a thermometer in his mouth and presses her ear to his back to listen to his breathing; makes him cough, stretch, and recite the alphabet forwards and backwards.  
  
"You seem to be recovering well," she says with quiet satisfaction afterwards. "I'd like to keep you in for the rest of the day just to make sure, but, barring any unpleasant surprises, you should be ready to go home tonight."  
  
"To the palace," Alasdair amends; firmly, because he doesn't want there to be any misunderstandings or arguments when the time comes. "I still have a job to do, Gabs."  
  
Gabriella's lips purse disapprovingly. "I would recommend you take at least a week off work to recuperate, but" – she sighs, shaking her head – "you'd probably ignore my advice whatever your circumstances. And you could do far worse than the palace, I suppose. His Highness will doubtless take better care of your health than you ever would yourself."  
  
"Where is Francis, anyway? And my brothers?"  
  
Whilst Alasdair wouldn't have wanted them all to waste their night sitting vigil at his bedside, he had expected at least a token display of concern. It had come as something of a shock when he awoke to find himself alone in an otherwise deserted ward.  
  
"Dyl was expecting a delivery, so he and Mikey went back to the apothecary just before dawn," Gabriella says. "They promised me they'd try to get a little sleep whilst they were there. I finally managed to persuade your prince that you wouldn't keel over and die the minute he took his eyes off you not long after they left, so he's bedded down in one of my spare rooms."  
  
"And Arthur?"  
  
Gabriella's eyes glint in amusement. "Are you sure you really want to know?"  
  
Her broad grin and teasing tone are answer enough. "Naw, I think I can take a good guess," Alasdair says hurriedly.  
  
Gabriella laughs, drops a quick kiss to his heated cheek, and then reminds him in her sternest healer tone that he should get some more rest and not even think about trying to exert himself. Alasdair nods submissively, but as soon as she bustles away to join Lili in shepherding the early morning arrivals to her clinic, he pushes back his coverlet and gingerly swings his aching legs off the bed.  
  
His entire body is itching, both inside and out, with the familiar, jittery irritation of forced inaction, and it feels as though his bones will vibrate their way clear through his skin if he keeps lying still for a minute longer.  
  
When he pushes himself to his feet, the entire room seems to shift around him. The ceiling lifts, the walls buckle and bend at impossible angles, and then the floor drops away. He has to catch hold of the small table at the side of the bed so that he doesn't fall along with it.  
  
The knowledge that his habitual restlessness is no real substitute for real strength or vigour is long familiar, too, but a truth that he doesn't much care for and thus chooses to ignore.  
  
He can't ignore the way his eyes mist over, or the lurching triphammer beat of his heart.  
  
He breathes steady and deep until his pulse slows and the dizziness passes, and when his vision clears again, he sees that there is a leather-bound book sitting atop the table that he's leaning so much of his weight against that it's shuddering under the strain.  
  
With the sight comes a sudden, urgent, but very welcome realisation. He doesn't have to be up and moving about to be doing something productive. Time spent reading is never wasted.  
  
He collapses back onto his bed with the book clasped gratefully to his chest, but when he opens it, he can't make sense of single word printed on its pages. The type – unreasonably cramped, surely? – bleeds together into an undifferentiated black lump.  
  
_My eyes are still tired_ , he reassures himself. _I'm sure they'll be fine after a little bit of a rest_.

 

 

* * *

  
  
  
Alasdair's roused from his doze by the grating sound of wood scraping against wood.  
  
Francis, dragging one of the heavy chairs from Gabriella's waiting room alongside the bed. He winces when he notices Alasdair watching him.  
  
"Sorry," he says. "I didn't mean to wake you." He hurriedly sets the chair down where it stands, leaving it canted at an awkward angle that results in him crushing his knees against the bed's frame when he seats himself.  
  
"I wasn't asleep," Alasdair feels driven to say. Judging by the grumbling of his stomach, it's almost lunchtime, and without the excuse of a night patrol to blame his lethargy on, sleeping at this hour seems horribly indulgent. "Just resting my eyes."  
  
"Well, you no doubt need it. either way," Francis leans forward and carefully studies his face. "And it's clearly doing you good," he says at length. "You look much better today."  
  
As an act of petty – and likely fruitless – revenge for the fresh wave of embarrassment birthed by that penetrating gaze, Alasdair makes a point of studying Francis just as closely in return.  
  
Yesterday's soiled coat and breeches have been discarded in favour of a white shirt and dark trousers. Although it's simple garb, it's as well-cut and cared for as any of his courtly clothes, which leads Alasdair to believe that it hadn't been chosen with disguise in mind, but pure comfort.  
  
His pallor has lifted a little, and his hair is clean and gleaming once more. Without recourse to his potions, however, he has not been able to yoke it to his will as he usually does, and it falls in gentle waves to his shoulders. It lends its softness to the rest of his face, and makes his chin seem rounder, his nose less pointed.  
  
Alasdair thinks it suits him far more than his normal style.  
  
"So do you," he therefore says with true feeling.  
  
Francis' cheeks, which had grown pink as Alasdair appraised him, darken further, and he glances frantically about himself as though in a desperate search for some means of distraction.  
  
The view from the nearby window doesn't hold his attention, nor the arrangement of flowers on the sill, nor even – though he certainly looks at them for long enough – the tangle of his fingers as he wrings his hands together on his lap. When he eventually catches sight of the book resting against Alasdair's chest, his relief is palpable.  
  
"Is it the right one?" he asks, nodding his head towards it.  
  
"What?"  
  
"The right volume."  
  
Alasdair squints down at the book's spine. For a long, worrying moment, the embossed golden letters there are as indecipherable as the words inside had been earlier, but once he concentrates hard enough to make his head start pounding all over again, they finally sharpen into a recognisable pattern.  
  
It's the fourth book in the series he's been reading. He'd finished the third just before he set out to meet Arthur in the palace gardens to collect the letters he'd stolen.  
  
"Aye," he says.  
  
"I asked for it to be sent along from the palace with a change of clothes for us both. I imagined you'd find your convalescence very tedious, otherwise."  
  
It's a thoughtful enough gesture that it seems churlish to give his thanks without reservation, but he still has to admit that, "I can't concentrate properly right now, so I won't be able to read it."  
  
Given how attentive Francis has been of late, it probably wouldn't have escaped his notice for very long, in any case.  
  
"Oh." Francis finds renewed interest in his hands. His fingers part, curl into towards his palms, and then lace together again so tightly that his knuckles blanch. "I used to... I used to read to Al and Maddy whenever they were confined to a sick bed as children. Maman too, on occasion. She said that the... the sound of my voice was very soothing."  
  
He looks up almost bashfully at Alasdair through his lowered lashes, as if ashamed to be making the unspoken offer implicit in his words. And it would surely be piling insult on top of the rudeness he'd already shown him for Alasdair to refuse it.  
  
He sighs, and nudges the book closer to Francis. "You might as well make yourself useful, then," he says.

 

* * *

  
  
  
Francis doesn't read as smoothly as Dylan, nor does he enliven his narration with – admittedly, often woefully wide of the mark –  sound effects and imitated accents as Arthur does, but Alasdair has to concur with his ma that there's something pleasantly comforting about the lilting cadences of his voice.  
  
They lull him into another light doze that is eventually broken by a brisk rapping at the ward room door.  
  
"I hope that's your lunch," Francis says. "Your stomach's been growling so loudly that I could barely hear myself speak at times."  
  
Alasdair ignores his censuring glare, and calls out, "Come in."  
  
When the door swings open, however, it does not reveal Lili carrying a much needed tea tray, but his captain and Angus, who has to duck his head as they enter the room so he doesn't knock himself out on the low hanging lintel.  
  
Protocol demands that Alasdair stand in the presence of his superior officer, but, judging by his earlier, failed experiment in verticality, attempting to do so would be unwise, so protocol can go piss up a rope. He offers them both a reposed salute, instead.  
  
The captain returns it briskly. Angus bobs his head and says, "Glad you're not dead."  
  
"So am I, mate." Alasdair grins at him, then straightens the collar of his nightshirt, and tries to at least _sit_ to attention, but his back has stiffened to such an extent over the course of the morning that the best he can manage is a sort of hunched crouch. "I suppose you're here to get my report, sir," he says to the captain, hoping that a prompt acknowledgement of his duty as a guard will go some way towards mitigating his thoroughly unprofessional posture.  
  
She looks honestly surprised. "We were concerned about you, Aly. This isn't an official visit. The report can wait."  
  
"There's no reason it should," Alasdair says. "My memory's working fine even if the rest of me isn't, and any delay could be costly with that bastard still at large."  
  
He tells the captain exactly where he was attacked, and how, but doesn't even bother trying to explain why he and Francis had found themselves in that part of Old Town in the first place. The pinch of the captain's lips suggests that she's noted the omission, but she doesn't press the matter, even though it makes the entire encounter sound like nothing more than unbelievably serendipitous happenstance.  
  
"Can you describe them?" the captain asks, pulling her guard-issue notebook and pen from an inside pocket of her coat.  
  
"Sorry, sir. I didn't even catch a glimpse of them."  
  
She turns to Francis. "Your Highness?"  
  
"I was too... preoccupied to observe anything of note," Francis says ruefully. "I couldn't even tell you whether they were short or tall. They were very agile, though. And quick. They outpaced me with humiliating ease."  
  
The captain nods, jots that down, and then flips to a different page in her book. "Unfortunately, I haven't learnt much since the last time we spoke, either. My Belowstreets contact did inform me about three individuals known to sell rare poisons alongside their more usual stock of dragonweed and counterfeit medicines. Mlle. Lesage, Mr Bakker, and a Mr... Big Jeff." She frowns. "I presume they're all pseudonyms."  
  
Alasdair chuckles. "Seems likely."  
  
"My contact told me that none of them have sold any such poisons for at least six months."  
  
"Or they won't admit to it, anyway. They're all criminals, sir; how can we trust a word they say?"  
  
"Believe me, they wouldn't lie to my contact."  
  
She sounds so very assured on that score that Alasdair can only conclude that her _contact_ is someone from the innermost circle of the Belowstreets cabal, and has to wonder anew how in the hells _Luise Beillschmidt_ , of all people, could possibly even contrive to meet such a person, never mind earn their confidence.  
  
"They could have bought it before then and stored it away," Francis points out. "Perhaps even with some other purpose in mind," he adds, presumably for Alasdair's benefit as they both know that these particular attacks can't possibly have been planned at such an early date.  
  
"My contact doesn't think so," the captain says. "They suspect that the murderer might have contacts of their own in Hibernia or Caledonia, or somewhere else outside the Empire's bounds."

 

* * *

 

  
  
Alasdair relates the captain's theory to Dylan when he and Michael return to the clinic later on that afternoon. His brother listens attentively, just as he always does, but looks unconvinced, all the same.  
  
"It does make sense, Aly," he says. "But..."  
  
"But?" Alasdair prompts when he drifts into pensive silence, nibbling at the side of his thumbnail.  
  
"But I'm afraid I didn't follow Gabs' advice," Dylan says apologetically. "I didn't go to bed when we got back to the apothecary, I started running tests on that dart. The results were the same as the last two times."  
  
He sounds oddly triumphant about that; his smile beaming as bright as his feverish eyes.  
  
"So you still haven't figured out what the poison is?" Alasdair asks. "How is that a good thing?"  
  
" _They were the same_ ," Dylan reiterates firmly. " I'm ashamed to say that I was looking so hard at the details that I completely missed the bigger picture before. I identified every last drug and herb in the mixture those darts were tipped with. Every last component, except for the poison.  
  
"Until today, I didn't realise that that _absence_ might be the important thing, Aly. The answer we've been looking for. I'm beginning to think that there was never any poison at all."


	52. Chapter 52

Francis offers Alasdair his hand to help him down from the carriage, which is appreciated, and thereafter insists on cupping it solicitously around Alasdair's elbow to steady his steps as they make their slow, halting way through the palace, which is distinctly less so.  
  
Alasdair shakes it loose more than once, but though Francis ' _Je suis désolé_ 's with apparent sincerity and releases his hold readily enough, the hand eventually creeps back again, regardless, as insidious and clinging as ivy.  
  
"What would your cousin say if he happened to see you clutching at me like this?" Alasdair asks after losing this particular battle for the third time, and deciding that a change in tactics is probably in order.  
  
"I imagine he would turn as red as a tomato and accuse me, once again, of being indecorously familiar with you," Francis says, sounding thoroughly unconcerned by the prospect. "To which I would reply that you have been very ill and are in need of my aid to keep you from falling over and dashing your brains out against the floor. Which would be a waste of the four silvers I've already set aside for your services today, not to mention the king's ransom I paid out for your uniforms. I doubt there is a single other person on my staff who would fill them out as well as you do, _mon cher caporal_."  
  
He smiles warmly. Alasdair scowls at him in return. "Francis—"  
  
"Please, just let me help you, Aly." Francis' grip tightens, clearly settling in for the long haul. "You just concentrate on staying upright, and leave me to worry about Lovino."  
  
Thankfully, their path remains undarkened by Prince Lovino's sneeringly censorious presence, or, indeed, anyone else's. The entire building is eerily quiet, and Alasdair catches sight of only one servant as they travel through its halls, scurrying between one door and another with their head bowed and their gaze fixed firmly upon the floor.  
  
Francis seems untroubled by this unnatural stillness and Alasdair is too preoccupied by the undertaking of putting one foot in front of the other to wonder over it for long. Walking seems unnecessarily complex following two days of enforced inactivity; a delicate balancing act of timing and coordination that drains him mentally as well as physically.  
  
His legs are shaking uncontrollably by the time they reach Francis' chambers, his undershirt soaked through with sweat, but he still mounts an objection when Francis advises that he retire for the night.  
  
"I don't want to take to my bed again quite yet, Francis. It's not even eight o'clock, and I'm sick of lying around. I hate being idle."  
  
Francis looks at him askance, and then tentatively proposes, "We could take a gentle stroll around the grounds, I suppose. Or... Or play a game of billiards, perhaps? That shouldn't be too taxing."  
  
Alasdair's mind and body both violently rebel at the thought of doing either. " _Standing's_ a bit too taxing for me right now," he says. "I was thinking more along the lines of sitting down for a while."  
  
"Oh... Oh, of course!" Francis springs away from Alasdair's side with such sudden and forceful energy that it almost causes Alasdair to overbalance and take the spill Francis had been so conscientious about keeping him from earlier. "Just give me a moment to get everything prepared..."  
  
Though the loud banging and clattering that then issues from his bedchamber suggests that he has undertaken a full-scale remodelling of the room, it looks largely unchanged when he finally guides Alasdair into it, save that the armchair set by the hearth is piled high with blankets and plump cushions once more.  
  
Francis himself, on the other hand, is completely transformed. The frock coat and breeches he'd donned to make the short journey between clinic and palace are gone, replaced by a long, simply cut blue robe that is not unlike the one Gabriella wears whilst making her rounds. Alasdair has never seen him wear anything of the sort before – even his dressing gown is made of far finer material and more liberally endowed with fancy embroidery – and it seems likely that he had Alaina whip it up when it became clear he would be taking a healer's place for at least the next few days.  
  
"Playing dress-up again?" he says.  
  
Francis' cheeks redden, but he otherwise ignores the observation in favour of helping Alasdair lower himself into the armchair, tucking blankets around his legs and shoulders, and piling cushions behind his back.  
  
Once Alasdair has been swaddled to his satisfaction, he sits back on his haunches and asks, "Is there anything else you need?"  
  
Dylan and Gabriella had conspired to concoct a noxious potion that they made Alasdair solemnly swear to take a spoonful of every hour, on the hour. It tastes like rancid cat's piss, and appears to have already started eating through the cork stoppering its bottle.  
  
"Just that book Dyl lent me," Alasdair says. "It's in my bag. About yae thick" – he holds his thumb and forefinger as far apart as they will go – "green cover; smells like it might have been accidentally dropped down a privy at some point in the recent past."  
  
"Our luggage should have been unloaded from the carriage by now," Francis says, nodding. "I'll go and fetch it for you."  
  
He reaches out as though to squeeze Alasdair's knee, and then, after he's risen to his feet again, his shoulder, but as both are now buried beneath several, muffling inches of wool, he eventually settles on running his fingertips lightly over the crown of Alasdair's head.  
  
"I won't be long," he promises before scurrying away again, but the fire and candles he lit have both burnt low by the time he returns, holding Dylan's book at a wary arm's length from his body in one hand, and the hateful bottle of so-called medicine in the other.  
  
"Apologies," he says somewhat breathlessly. "I got waylaid in quick succession by Alfred, Madeline, and Feliciano, all inquiring after your health, and then lastly by Lovino, who wanted to know whether I had lost my mind entirely and decided to join one of the monastic orders."  
  
"Can't say that I blame him for wondering," Alasdair says. "That outfit is definitely a lot more clerical than your usual garb."  
  
"I had it made on Miss Carriedo's advice. Apparently, the curative she and your brother prepared for you would likely damage less... robust clothing if it happened to be splashed with any."  
  
He drops the bottle onto Alasdair's lap, closely followed by a spoon, and then looks at him expectantly.  
  
"If it does that to clothes, imagine what it's doing to my insides," Alasdair protests, but Francis is unmoved, even going so far as pouring out a spoonful after Alasdair makes no attempt to do so himself.  
  
Alasdair snatches the spoon off him before he has chance to try swooping it, bird-like, towards his mouth like a parent trying to coax an unwilling baby into eating pureed carrots, and sullenly swallows the lot in one quick gulp. Not quite quick enough to stop it hitting the roof of his mouth on the way down, however, and it feels to sear straight through his hard palate and into his sinus cavity.  
  
Francis pats his bowed back comfortingly as he coughs and splutters, and then hands him Dylan's book afterwards as though as a consolation prize. "The stench is even worse than you described," he says, shuddering. "What on earth has made it stink like that?"  
  
"Well, it's a good couple of centuries old, for a start," Alasdair says, running a hand over the book's cover. The cracked and pitted leather feels almost as familiar as his own skin. "Been in Ma's family for generations, and those generations have always kept it in their laboratories, where it's had all manner of vile substances spilled on it as they work.  
  
"Dyl wouldn't usually let it out of his own lab because it's damn near the only heirloom we've got from that side of the family save the shop, but he wanted me to read up on the herbs he found on that dart, and I shouldn't think I'll be making it down to Old Town for a while yet."  
  
Dylan has marked several pages with scraps of paper, and Alasdair turns gingerly to the first, taking care to touch the fine, brittle paper as little as possible.  
  
The page is topped by a washed-out illustration of a pinkish red flower with thin, pointed petals, which surmounts a short description of the plant's scent, growing patterns, and preferred soil types. Alongside this terse paragraph, Evanses past have added their own notes and corrections, the ink faded into illegibility on the oldest ones.  
  
Francis perches on the arm of Alasdair's chair and squints down at the cramped writing myopically. Alasdair sighs, and then shifts his weight slightly so that Francis can move closer and hopefully see a little better.  
  
"So your mother's family have always been apothecaries?" Francis asks after a minute or two's silent perusal of the page's marginalia.  
  
"They've always worked with herbs, as far as I know," Alasdair says. Technically, before his great-grandmother had been forced to turn her herblore to more Imperially acceptable pursuits, the Evanses had all been hedge witches. "Guess you could say that it's in our blood."  
  
Francis smiles. "I think you're very lucky to have this living record of everyone who has come before you."  
  
Alasdair thinks he's over-egging the pudding a bit, given that his own family history has been chronicled in extensive detail by innumerable hands in paint and stone in addition to ink, but nonetheless he can't help but agree with the sentiment.  
  
Gramma Bronwyn had died before he was born, but he'd still come to know her somewhat through her crabby asides on her own mother's additions to the text, and his Ma is preserved there, too, in her notes on proper grinding techniques, dilutions, and the like.  
  
He recognises his Ma's spidery handwriting on the page he has open, and touches a finger to it. "Ma would never have met Da if she wasn't an apothecary," he says.  
  
"Oh?" Francis says; low and soft, his voice barely even stirring the air.  
  
Alasdair nods. "Not long after Da moved to Old Town, he developed this rash on his arms that just wouldn't shift. He could barely afford to feed himself, so he tried to ignore it for as long as he could. He ended up scratching near half of his skin off, though,  and by that point he just couldn't bear it any more. So then he asked around for a healer, and someone pointed him in Ma's direction."  
  
"And there he roused her compassion?" Francis guesses.  
  
"Naw, her professional curiosity. The first ointment she sold him didn't work, nor did the second. In the end, she was asking him to come in every day so she could try out some new cure or other free of charge, just because she was determined that this damn thing wouldn't get the best of her.  
  
"After a few weeks, the rash up and disappeared on its own, but Da kept coming round to Ma's shop anyway, because that hour or so they spent together had turned into the highlight of their days."  
  
Ma and Da had told that story countless times over the course of Alasdair's childhood, both laughing at how ridiculous it sounded. 'Our eyes met over scabrous skin and an alembic' as Da had put it. Alasdair can still hear him say it now, clear as day. His eyes dampen, prickling at their corners, but he doesn't rub at them or turn his head aside for fear of drawing Francis' attention to that fact.  
  
"Not the most romantic of stories, I think you'll agree," Alasdair finishes quickly. His voice sounds much too nasal for his liking.  
  
"I don't think I do," Francis says, his own voice still hushed. "There can be just as much romance in the small things and quiet stories as there is in the grandest of epics." In his normal tone, he adds, "Well, I know next to nothing about herbs, so I doubt I'll get a great deal out of your book. I'll start trying to catch up with my correspondence and leave it to you alone, if I may, Aly."  
  
Although Alasdair nods and shoos him away to his desk readily enough, he doesn't have a much better opinion of his own odds at understanding. Sensing their disinterest, Ma hadn't taught any more than the very basics of her craft to Alasdair, Caitlin or Arthur, preferring to concentrate all her efforts and limited time on Dylan, who soaked it all up like a sponge.  
  
Consequently, most of Dylan's herblore book might as well have been written in High Imperial for all the sense it makes, and thus he has to focus so completely on trying to wring some meaning out of the words that he doesn't notice anything amiss with Francis until he cries out in alarm.  
  
Alasdair attempts to spring to his feet, but the blankets tangle around them like a snare, effectively binding him to his seat. "What is it?" he is forced to ask in action's stead. "Are you okay?"  
  
"I'm fine," Francis says lightly, though the stiff line of his back gives immediate lie to the breezy reassurance.  
  
"So you've decided to start screaming at random just for the fun of it then?"  
  
"I didn't scream," Francis says, sounding a little indignant. "I was simply surprised by something."  
  
"What?"  
  
"Nothing you need to concern yourself with whilst you're so ill, Aly."  
  
"Will knowing what it was cause me to have to run a circuit round the palace? Scale the garden walls?"  
  
"No, but why—"  
  
"Well, then you can tell me, then. I'm a bit under the weather, Francis, not one foot in the grave quite yet."  
  
Francis groans. "All right. You win. I suppose I'd have to tell you sooner or later, anyway, especially as it might pertain to our investigations," he says. "I had to get some more paper, and when I opened the drawer I noticed that the contents had been... rearranged slightly. I think one of my pens might be missing, too.  
  
"That's the drawer I kept my letters in, Aly. The one I thought was so very safe. Granted, it wasn't locked this time, but this... this person who thinks they are free to rifle through my possessions at will has still pawed through it. What if I wasn't always as careful at keeping it locked as I like to believe. What if...?"  
  
His words dissolve into deep, shaky breaths, and he hunches down even further over his desk.  
  
"Do you want me to stay in here again tonight?" Alasdair says, eyeing the defeated slump of Francis' shoulders.  
  
"Of course not," Francis says sharply. "I couldn't possibly ask you to sleep on the settee in your current condition. But..."  
  
"But what?" Alasdair prompts when he trails into silence again. "What do you think we should be doing about this, Francis?"  
  
"I don't know," Francis growls in frustration. "We can hardly stay holed up in this room for every minute of every day, waiting for the trespasser to sneak their way in here again, can we? But... But what else is left to us now?"  
  
He turns in his seat slightly, allowing Alasdair to see his face finally, albeit only a small slice of his profile. Nevertheless, it's sufficient to discern that it has drained of all blood, and he has bitten deep into his bottom lip. His eyelashes are trembling, suggesting tremors running through his body despite the steadiness of his voice.  
  
Since they first realised someone had taken the liberty of entering Francis' chambers there is one particular decision that Alasdair has avoided making, but the sight resolves it in an instant.  
  
"I agree there's not much more _we_ could do," he says slowly. "But there is something else _I_ could try."


	53. Chapter 53

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shorter update this time, but I thought this part might work better set apart on its own from what's to follow...

* * *

 

Francis replies to Alasdair's suggestion with a swift and unequivocal, "No."  
  
"What?" Alasdair frowns at him, nonplussed. "You haven't even heard what I propose to do yet."  
  
"I don't need to. I already know what you intend to say, and I know, too, that it's impossible."  
  
"Unless you possess some kind of mind-reading abilities you've been keeping secret from me all this time, you can't possibly _know_ anything of the sort."  
  
"Fine," Francis snaps, sounding a little petulant. "Have it your way. Let's just call it an educated guess and leave it at that."  
  
"Francis, you're being unreason—"  
  
"Aly." The name is spoken as sharply as a rebuke. "I have no wish to discuss this any further."  
  
He sounds so imperious, so much like a lord of the manor demanding obedience from one of his serfs, that Alasdair defies him on bristling reflex. "Well, I do. I am part of this conversation, aren't I? We are still talking about _me_? So, please. Enlighten me. What's so educated about this guess of yours? What makes you so sure that you know what I was going to say?"  
  
Francis turns his head away from Alasdair again, and for a long while afterwards, stares fixedly at the blank vista afforded by the curtained window above his desk as though it might offer up some sage wisdom if only he could concentrate hard enough.  
  
Eventually, he says in a quiet, mouse-like squeak of a voice, "I'm afraid there's one more thing to which I must confess. Something that pertains to you."  
  
"Really?" Alasdair says, rolling his eyes solely for his own benefit as Francis seems to be unwilling to look at him, preferring to unburden himself to the nonjudgemental audience of the curtains, instead. "You do surprise me. Okay, let's hear it. Confess."  
  
"When... When we first met, and I was still unsure of your allegiances, I took it upon myself to do a little research into you and... and your family," Francis says haltingly. "Nothing too sinister, I assure you. As I said before, there are no spies in my employ.  
  
"I simply looked through the Imperial archives stored here at the palace, and those in the courthouse and town hall. Notices of births and deaths, work permits, marriage licenses and the like. All of which are freely available to any interested citizen.  
  
"Everything I read there seemed to confirm you were exactly who you claimed to be. Alasdair James Kirkland, born 1821, resident of Ashfield Street and Corporal of the Town Guard since 1840. There was something that seemed suspicious, however. A single entry on the town census taken a decade ago."  
  
"And?" Alasdair prompts when he falters into silence once more.  
  
"It concerned your mother," Francis says with a sigh. "Apparently, according to the records, she had left your family home that year in order to 'spread the word of the Silent God amongst the heathens of Germania'."  
  
"That's a load of shite from the start of it." Alasdair snorts. "Even if she _was_ the type to go preaching, she would have dragged the rest of us along with her. She'd never have gone off on her own."  
  
"From what you've told me of her, I don't doubt that," Francis says. "Of course, I wasn't aware of that at the time. It was the description itself that gave me pause." He leaps to his feet in a sudden rush, and then begins to pace back and forth along the span of his desk behind his abandoned chair. He still doesn't spare so much as a glance in Alasdair's direction. "Do you recall me telling you of my lover who also disappeared, in much the same way as your mother did?"  
  
"Aye."  
   
"After Felice was taken, I was made to spend several months in Roma... reflecting on my actions during the whole affair. Whilst I was there, Felice's sister sought me out and showed me the letter my father had sent her mother after she had written to him, begging his aid in finding her apparently wayward son.  
  
"'Spreading the word of the Silent God amongst the heathens of Germania' was how he had chosen to explain Felice's absence from Lutetia to her. That exact same wording. Now, Felice had many admirable qualities, but piety was most definitely not one of them. Caterina did not accept that explanation any more than I did.  
  
"I was a little taken aback to see that phrase again, ascribed this time to your mother, and I did begin to wonder. Then, after you seemed so shaken when I told you of the Seeker's work, and how it had directed them to your neighbour, I came to believe that that wondering was almost certainly a fact. I've heard that it often runs in families, and..." Francis stops dead in his tracks, and swivels on his heel to face Alasdair. "So, that's why I don't want to discuss this. Even between the two of us, it's best that such things are not given voice, never mind action."  
  
His concern is touching, if misplaced. Such ignorance is only to be expected, though, given the distortions and falsehoods the Empire has spun over the centuries.  
  
"It's all right," Alasdair offers him an encouraging smile. "There's really nothing to worry about."  
  
"Nothing to worry about?" Francis echoes, looking stricken. "How can you possibly be this blasé after everything I've told you about Felice? About my centurion?"  
  
"Your Felice was barely strong enough to float a feather, right?"  
  
Francis nods.  
  
"Well, I—"  
  
"Don't," Francis practically screams, shaking his head violently. "Please, don't—"  
  
"I'm much stronger than that, and I was trained properly in all the old arts," Alasdair says as quickly as he can in the hopes that he can get all the necessary words out before he's interrupted again. "I wouldn't be in any danger."  
  
"You can't be certain of that," Francis insists. "Surely your mother knew these same arts, and she... she still suffered the same fate as Felice."  
  
"Although I don't like to think of it, Ma didn't exactly make a secret of what she could do, and all it would have taken was one set of loose lips, one word in the wrong ear."  
  
Francis appears to perk up at that suggestion, a little colour returning to his otherwise ashen cheeks. "Precisely," he says. "The wrong ear. Most would agree that, on this subject, the ear of an Imperial governor is one of the very worst in existence. You could easily be signing your own death warrant with this, Aly. And for what? My stupid, possibly baseless, worries?"  
  
"You gave me the means to sign yours days ago, Francis. I already hold your life in my hands, it only seems fair to give you my own in return. Besides, it's for the good of our investigation just as much as your nerves." Alasdair meets Francis' eyes levelly. "There's a spell I can cast that will help us."  
  
Francis' nostrils flare wide, his mouth gapes open, and he staggers as though he's just been delivered a solid and physical blow. He grabs hold of the edge of his desk to steady himself, and simply stands there breathing deeply for a moment or two, until he's gathered sufficient of his wits or composure that he can start moving with deliberation once more.  
  
He uses this newfound fortitude to launch himself as swift and as straight as an arrow to Alasdair's side. Once there, however, he appears uncertain about how he wants to proceed. Though the warmth of his gaze and his slight smile suggest a friendly overture of some sort, the slow curl of his fingers towards his palms warn of a punch to the jaw, instead.  
  
Alasdair's patience with speculating on his intentions very soon runs out. "Come on, then," he urges, eager to get it all over and done with, for good or for ill. "What are you waiting for? Get on with it. Do your worst."  
  
Francis tilts his head, wets his lips with the tip of his tongue, and then leans in close; close enough that Alasdair can smell the hint of wine on his breath, and feel the warmth of his body even through the mound of blankets piled on top of him. His stomach clenches almost painfully tight.  
  
To his surprise, Francis merely takes hold of his hand and presses it very briefly against his cheek.  
  
"Oh," Alasdair says dazedly; without thinking, "for a moment there, I thought you were going to kiss me."  
  
"Thought or feared?" Francis asks, cocking one eyebrow.  
  
Alasdair's heart did skip a beat or two, but he honestly couldn't say what emotion had caused it. He shrugs helplessly.  
  
Francis chuckles, and then brushes his lips against Alasdair's brow. The kiss prickles in exactly the same way as the one to his palm had done, making his skin itch, albeit not in such a way that makes him want to scratch at it.  
  
"Happy now?" Francis says, beaming down at Alasdair in what looks to be delight.  
  
Whether its due to some measure of lingering confusion, or the fraught nature of their previous conversation, Alasdair finds that he's too weary to share either the smile or the sentiment.  
  
"Naw, just tired," he says, squeezing Francis' fingers apologetically in an attempt to soften the words. "I think I should be getting to bed. I'll need to be well-rested if I'm going to weave magic tomorrow."


	54. Chapter 54

The voice next to Alasdair's ear is nothing more than an irritating, formless drone, like the buzzing of an insect's wings.  
  
He swats at it accordingly.  
  
His hand is caught tight, held still, and then Francis says, "If I'd known you react this violently to being awoken, I'd have taken M. Jansen up on his offer of rousting you from your bed."  
  
He sounds far too chipper for the hour. Disgustingly so. Alasdair tries to swat him with his other hand, but it's captured just as easily.  
  
"Or perhaps followed Alfred's suggestion, and poked you with a long stick from the doorway. He warned me that you should probably be left to wake up naturally otherwise, but I was very conscious of how much of the day has already slipped away from us. After all, you did tell me that you don't like being idle."  
  
Alasdair cracks open his eyes. The weak light filtering in through the curtains drawn over the window at the foot of his bed stabs at the back of his skull like a red hot poker. He hurriedly screws them closed again.  
  
"What time is it?" he asks. "I take it I missed the letter reading."  
  
"You did. M. Jansen was most displeased. He raised one eyebrow to almost vertiginous heights." Francis clasps Alasdair's hands a little tighter, and then releases his hold on both of them. "You also missed meetings with Mr Thomas from the Printer's Guild, and Brother Antonio from the Paupers' order. It's nearly eleven o'clock."  
  
"Fucking hell, Francis." Against the vehement advisement of his lower back, legs, and arms, Alasdair pushes himself up into a sitting position. "Why did you let me sleep that long?"  
  
"As my mother would say, you obviously needed it. You look decidedly less corpse-like this morning."  
  
Alasdair certainly _feels_ like a revenant which has recently clawed its way out of its coffin, and sprained a few important muscles along the way. His head does seem slightly clearer, though, and not so much like someone has cracked open the top of it and had a good go at the contents with an egg whisk.  
  
He risks opening his eyes again. After a great deal of blinking and swearing, Francis begins swims into hazy view. He is perched on the very edge of the bed, and looks in fine, dapper form: his hair neatly queued, his complexion rosy, and his usual fashionable frock-coated uniform in impeccable place once more.  
  
When Alasdair is finally able to focus on him properly, Francis grins. "There you go," he says. "Practically alive again. And I'm sure you'll feel even better once you've breakfasted."  
  
Alasdair has missed his palace breakfasts: the plump, flaky pastries, rich butter, and finely blended tea. His mouth starts to water, but the tray Francis slides onto his lap a moment later houses nothing but a deep bowl of gruel and a glass of water.  
  
"Lovely," he says, poking at them both disconsolately. "Invalid food."  
  
"You _are_ still an invalid, _mon cher_. So much so, in fact, that I can't help but wonder if it's perhaps unwise for you to attempt your... work today. Maybe you should wait a while longer. Regain some more of your strength."  
  
"I'd hardly call it work," Alasdair scoffs. "I've been able to do this particular trick since I was about six years old. It's not exactly difficult."  
  
"Right." Francis looks to deflate slightly, his shoulders rounding. "Of course."

"It's handy, too, when you're growing up in close quarters and your brothers and sister have been known to have sticky fingers when it comes to each other's possessions. All it does is mark something as yours, and then, if anyone else tries to touch it, it stains their hands in a way that's completely invisible if you haven't got the Sight, and indelible for at least a week, besides."  
  
Francis nods vaguely. "If you're sure..."  
  
"Quite sure," Alasdair says. "After I've choked down this slop, we'll get right to it."  


 

* * *

 

  
  
Alasdair crouches down in front of the door to Francis' bedchamber, carefully eases a trickle of magic down into the tip of the index finger of his left hand, and then traces a wide circle across the wood. It flares brightly for an instant, indicating that it is unbroken and the spell is ready to be primed, and then fades to a dim glow.  
  
"You know, I was expecting a _little_ more spectacle. Chanting, burning herbs, and the like."  
  
Alasdair glances back over his shoulder towards where Francis is sitting, cross-legged on the hallway floor behind him. He shakes his head.  
  
"All you need are words, power, and will." The runes for 'safety', 'belonging' and 'stranger' follow, equally spaced around the circle's perimeter. "The rest is just showmanship."  
  
"It seems almost banal," Francis says. He sounds a mite disappointed.  
  
"It is." At the centre of it all, the rune for 'warning'. "It's nothing but another tool, at the end of the day. I guess you could think of it like a knife: carving up food in one hand, slicing throats in another. How dangerous it is depends on who's wielding it. In and of itself, its neither spectacular nor dangerous."  
  
Francis makes no answer to that, and Alasdair uses this moment of silence to lean back and survey the full sweep of his handiwork. The lines are straight and bold, their light pure and even. One of his better efforts, but it's such a simple wee thing that he'd be ashamed of himself if it was anything other than perfect. It's only with more complex, delicate spells that his runework has a tendency to become sloppy.  
  
"That's all set, we just need to seal it with our names now," Alasdair says as he writes out his own above the safety rune. "Got to make sure it doesn't trigger every damn time we use the door."  
  
"Will we have to speak them aloud, then, before we enter?" Francis asks.  
  
"There's no need to say anything. The spell will recognise you once your name's been woven into it. "  
  
"How?"  
  
"Like I said, words are important, and a person's true, full name is amongst the most potent of them. It can be used to bind magic to them, shape them with it, direct a spell their way, and so on."  
  
"So it can be a very powerful thing, for someone who knows how to work magic?"  
  
"Aye, it's..." Alasdair grimaces, suddenly realising that Francis' questions might not be born of curiosity but nervousness. An understandable reluctance to share this very personal, vulnerable part of himself, and give it up to a force he doesn't truly understand. "Francis, I would never—"  
  
Francis quickly rattles off seven names with no further hesitation. This long list is rounded off by 'the second', which Alasdair finds hard to credit.  
  
"Gods above," he says as he traces out the final, and slightly cramped, 'd'. "I don't think I've ever heard of anyone having been lumbered with quite so many middle names before."  
  
"There are only four, perhaps five, first names deemed suitable for the male line of the Gallian royal family," Francis says. "Imaginations do tend to run riot with the rest, though."  
  
"And with the first, in your brother Alfred's case."  
  
"Ah, as I told you before, that was one of the few victories Maman won in the war that was her marriage to my father. His first wife met with no such resistance when naming Gabriel, I believe, but he will likely become a Louis if he ascends to the throne, just as my father did." Francis sighs deeply, and then asks, "Do you need anything else?"  
   
"Naw, it's finished. All we need to do now is wait for your unwelcome visitor to come prowling around again..."  
  
"And we'll catch them red-handed," Francis says, a note of grim satisfaction hardening his tone.  
  
"Well, bluey-green-handed actually," Alasdair says, "but, aye, that's the general idea."  
  


 

* * *

 

  
  
Alasdair wastes the rest of the day slumped on one of the sofas in Francis' sitting room with a book lying optimistically open beside him, dozing intermittently throughout.  
  
The next day, he manages to stagger downstairs, and then - after being subjected to a thorough scolding from M. Jansen for his previous dereliction of duty, delivered via the medium of pointed eyebrow twitches - sit through the reading of the morning post without nodding off once.  
  
Following a rejuvenating lurch through the gardens, he feels energised enough to accompany Francis down to the practice room beneath the hall and watch him run through his drills, though trying to pick up a sword himself proves too much for his aching shoulders and neck to bear.  
  
When they return to Francis' bedchamber afterwards, the documents he had left splayed enticingly across the top of his desk have clearly been rifled through.  
  
Though every muscle in his body is screaming at him that it's past time to have a nice, long lie down – and Francis is only a few decibels away from doing the same – Alasdair instead draws deep on the last dregs of his dwindling resources and spends the next couple of hours roaming around the palace with Francis in tow, staring at the hands of anyone and everyone who crosses his path.  
  
He sees nothing.  
  
Nothing until Francis drags him – protesting, because he sees nothing appealing about the idea save for the prospect of sitting down for a spell – to dine with his family, where Alasdair has to sit up straight, make polite noises at whatever excruciatingly dull small talk is directed his way, and otherwise bite his tongue until the last of the luncheon plates are tidied away and he can pull Francis to one side and tell him:  
  
"Now, this doesn't exactly shock me, but it might come as a surprise to you. Your trespasser is your cousin, Lovino."


	55. Chapter 55

Alasdair expects Francis to call him a liar, to accuse him of treason and demand that he look again, look harder, look towards someone, anyone else who isn't his kin and the Emperor's son, besides.  
  
But he doesn't so much as demur or even equivocate. He simply gives a sharp nod of his head, jaw set tight, and says, "Then we should go and confront him," rendering moot all of the protests and pleas Alasdair had been busily constructing in order to rebut him.  
  
Surprise leaves him speechless for a moment, and even afterwards, all he can manage is a stammered and somewhat self-defeating, "Are... Are you sure?"  
  
"Quite sure," Francis insists firmly. "Just as I'm sure that he cannot possibly be involved in these attacks, and there must be some reasonable explanation for what you saw. One I'm most eager to hear."  
  
Eager enough that he dredges up his old army training, seemingly, and breaks out a military quick step that's so brisk and efficient that Alasdair's hard-pressed to keep up with him in his weakened state, despite his own stride being near twice as long.  
  
At the door to Prince Lovino's chambers, he meets his cousin's valet with icy politeness and then dismisses him in the next breath with such brusque determination that the poor man – who should, by rights, not have to pay his orders any heed except on his master's say-so – scurries meekly and immediately away without putting up so much as a single squeak of protest.  
  
"If this is how you acted as a Legate, I can't imagine why you think you were bad at the job," Alasdair says as he watches the valet's harried retreat. "I feel as though I should be saluting you right now."  
  
"I never said I wasn't skilled at the role, merely ill-suited," Francis says, and even though there's a hint of smugness in his voice, the faint flush of colour in his cheeks suggests he is both surprised and pleased by the observation. "Right" – he squares his shoulders, then daintily rearranges the line of his coattails and sit of his shirt cuffs – "now we can talk to Lovino in peace and put this nonsense to rest."  
  
Lovino is sitting at his desk, evidentially in the midst of penning a letter that's proving troublesome to write, given the way he's scowling at the paper. The scowl eases a little when he looks up at Francis' terse greeting, but returns with renewed force as soon as he catches sight of Alasdair.  
  
"What are you doing here?" he asks, sneering.  
  
"We just wanted to ask you a few questions, cousin," Francis answers, even though both the question and curled lip had been directed towards Alasdair.  
  
Lovino rolls his eyes. "And I'm busy, _cousin_ ," he says, he taps at the half-finished letter with the nib of his pen. "We'll be meeting for dinner in a few hours, anyway. Can't it wait until then?"  
  
"No," Francis says. "It's an urgent matter, and a delicate one. I think it best if we speak in privacy. "  
  
"Francis—"  
  
"Someone entered my chambers today uninvited. Some small items have been stolen, my papers had clearly been rifled through, and not for the first time," Francis says, edging closer to better loom over his still-seated cousin. "I know it was you, Lovino."  
  
"Why the fuck would I want to go snooping around your room?" Lovino splutters indignantly. "How dare you barge in here and accuse me of... What in the hells made you think it was _me_?"  
  
"As I said, I don't _think_ it was you, I _know_ it was." Francis smiles thinly. "I have ways and means of finding the truth of such things, as you are well aware. My father taught me well, after all."  
  
Whilst Alasdair knows that this allusion to spies in his employ is a complete fabrication, it is clear Lovino does not. He blanches, all of the fire and anger apparently draining out of him in an instant, leaving him sullen-faced and slumped in his chair. "Fine," he says, crossing his arms over his chest. "I'll tell you what you want to know. But not," he nods towards Alasdair, "whilst _he's_ here."  
  
"Anything you want to say to me, you can say in front of Aly," Francis says, shaking his head.  
  
'Aly,' Lovino mouths, his nose wrinkled in disgust, before asking Francis, "You trust him that much?"  
  
"I do," Francis says, firm and assured. "With my life, and I can personally assure you of his discretion."  
  
Lovino stares intently at Francis for a moment, presumably searching his face for any sign of falsehood or doubt. Finally, he throws his hands up to the heavens, and again says, "Fine. On your head be it." He straightens up, his head held high and proud. "I did enter your chambers, and I did look through your papers, but I didn't fucking _steal_ from you. If anything's missing, I suspect Alfred's your culprit. You know he likes to borrow first and ask permission later."  
  
This time, Francis pales, and he takes a shaky step back from Lovino, his eyes growing wide. "Al? He... He's been in my chambers, as well?"  
  
"We all have, Francis. Madeline and Feliciano, too."  
  
"But why?" Francis asks, his voice little more than a whisper. He sounds hurt, betrayed, and Alasdair reaches out towards him, hoping to offer some small comfort or reassurance, but Francis shies away from his hand.  
  
"Because we were worried about you," Lovino says, his expression softening fractionally. "I'm sorry to say, but your brother's been poking around your room since practically the first moment he arrived here, never mind your thoughts on the matter, and one day he happened across a letter, addressed to you, from someone calling themselves a Seeker..."  
  
Francis stumbles back still further until his back hits the wall beside Lovino's desk, and he leans against it, closing his eyes. "And then what?" he asks dully. "Were you gathering evidence against me to your father? Or mine? I can't believe that—"  
  
"No," Lovino interrupts him sharply. "You've already proven that you have a... weakness towards those of a... certain persuasion, and we were _worried_ " – he puts a heavy emphasis on the word, and gives Francis a look which is as meaningful as it is wasted upon him – "that you might put yourself in danger again for their sake.  
  
"So, yes, in a way we were looking for evidence. But only of what your answer was, what your plans might be, so we could interrupt them if needs be, for your sake. Your father would have you executed if he suspected you even read that letter, Francis."  
  
Francis frowns. "Then why all the subterfuge? If you were as concerned as you say, why didn't you simply talk to me about it?"  
  
Lovino snorts loudly. "You never would have listened to us, much less told us the truth."  
  
"You're my _family_ , I would never have lied to you," Francis insists.  
  
"Really?" Lovino says, sounding incredulous. "Don't give me that crap. You lied to Feliciano and me about what your father was doing to you when he brought you to Roma, and about what he did to you after he sent you home from the war. We know he had you flogged, Francis."  
  
A flicker of pain passes across Francis' face, briefly contorting his features. "You know no such thing," he says tightly. "I never—"  
  
"You probably thought you hid it well, but we know _you_ , too. The way you moved, how you held yourself... When we visited you in Lutetia then, it was plain to us that he'd hurt you. Even more plain to your mother. But we never confronted you about it because you were obviously trying to protect us from it. Just as we've been trying to protect you now."  
  
It all sounds very convenient to Alasdair, and likely hogwash besides, but Francis seems willing to take Lovino at his word. "I appreciate your intentions, I suppose, if not your methods," he says, then, after heaving a long, wavering sigh, adds, "And you only ever found that one letter?"  
  
"Yes," Lovino says, eyeing Francis suspiciously. "Were there any more?"  
  
Francis bats the question away with a lazy flap of his hand. "I presume, though, that you all met up from time to time, to share your concerns behind my back and discuss what you had discovered whilst you were rooting through my belongings."  
  
At Lovino's nod, he asks, "And it was only ever the four of you there? No chance that you might have been overheard?"  
  
Lovino opens his mouth as if to reply, but quickly closes it again, looking thoughtful. "A servant may have wandered by a time or two," he eventually admits.  
  
Alasdair groans. "Gods above, how could you be so—" He bites back the insult that comes naturally to his lips, because the man might well be a fucking idiot – and it would doubtless do him the world of good to be told as much more often – but he is, at the end of the day, still an Imperial prince, and unlikely to take kindly to such honesty, overdue or no, "Can you at least remember who they were?"  
  
Lovino looks Alasdair up and down, slowly and superciliously. "I can't say I've ever made it a habit to take particular notice of the staff."  
  
Alasdair's hands automatically begin to form fists. "Well, maybe you should fucking start, then—"  
  
Francis places a gentle hand against his arm, holding him back. "Thank you, Lovino," he says. "That's all we needed to know. You've been very helpful."  
  
Alasdair looks at him questioningly, because, as far as he's concerned that's just as big a lie as any other Francis has ever told his cousin, but Francis shakes his head minutely, then glances back towards the chamber door. Clearly, there's something he needs to say in the sort of privacy that doesn't include Lovino, this time.  
  
He's interested enough to hear it that he's willing to follow Francis' lead forgo any further haranguing of Lovino, but he's certainly not, in this moment, particularly _thankful_ for anything the prince has said.  
  
He takes his own leave in silence.


	56. Chapter 56

"I assume you'll be wanting to talk to your brother and sister next," Alasdair says as soon as he and Francis have left Lovino's chambers and the door is safely closed behind them.  
  
"No. Why would I?" Francis asks. He sounds genuinely puzzled.  
  
"To corroborate your cousin's story?" Alasdair can hardly believe it needs saying, but then Francis does appear to have swallowed Lovino's half-baked explanations with remarkable ease, his righteous indignation over the invasion of his much-valued privacy entirely forgotten. "Do you honestly believe he was telling the truth about what's been going on?"  
  
"I do," Francis says firmly. When Alasdair frowns at him, still disbelieving, he adds, "I know Lovino can be a little... abrasive, but he's a good man, and I trust him.  
  
"I know I haven't yet shared what my father had done to me when we visited Roma after Felice disappeared - it's a miserable tale, as I'm sure you can imagine, and one best saved for when we're both a great deal less sober than we are now - but suffice to say it was hardly pleasant.  
  
"Lovino and Feliciano took care of me then, and lied to my father many times to spare me from the worst of his anger, even though that could have proved dangerous, no matter that they're Imperial princes and his nephews, besides." He shrugs. "You likely think me naive, especially as he's just admitted to abusing my trust, but I still believe that he would always act with my best interests at heart, even if I don't agree with his methods."  
  
There's no logical argument Alasdair can make against a gut feeling; a loyalty born from a closeness and history he doesn't share. He would feel the same way as Francis if someone were to accuse Dylan - or, hells, even Arthur - of scheming against him. Perhaps he is being unfair. Being a rude, snobbish wanker doesn't make someone a murderer, though it would certainly make his job easier if it did.  
  
"Fine," he says grudgingly. "So, we've ruled out your cousin. What now?"  
  
"Well..." Francis draws out the word, seemingly reluctant to reach its end, and gazes off down the length of the corridor in that abstract way Alasdair has noticed often precedes something he'd much prefer to avoid saying. "Something we probably should have done several days ago."  
  
"Which is...?" Alasdair prompts, when Francis falls into chewing pensively at his bottom lip instead of explaining himself further.  
  
"Paying a visit to Ivan," Francis says without turning his head, as though he's voicing his thoughts to the air rather than directing them towards Alasdair, walking at his shoulder.  
  
Presumably, since that way he can distance himself in some small way from the suggestion, and for that, Alasdair can't blame him. It's not an inherently absurd one, far from it, but so overdue by now that's it's verging on the ridiculous, regardless. If Alasdair had been left to his own devices in conducting this investigation, Ivan would have been one of his first ports of call.  
  
"I thought you couldn't be seen having a private meeting with him," Alasdair says. "Wouldn't it be _improper_."  
  
"I've decided that it's worth the risk. Everyone already thinks I'm being very improper with at least one of my servants" - he aims a small, tentative smile Alasdair's way, doubtless meant as an apology - "and the world has kept on spinning. My father hasn't called for my head, and no-one's demanded that I relinquish my post. Lovino might question my taste, but—"  
  
"Charming." Alasdair snorts.  
  
"Ah, don't pout, _mon cher_ ," Francis says, grinning. "You already know that I don't agree with him."  
  
"I'm not—" Alasdair bites down hard on his tongue, cutting himself off abruptly. Francis' expression is gleeful, obviously delighted by this turn in their conversation, and liable to run the subject into the ground if given the tiniest hint of encouragement.  
  
Francis watches him in anticipatory silence for a moment, but when it becomes clear Alasdair isn't going to indulge him, he doesn't press the point further. "I imagine there are many who are questioning my morals," he says instead, "but I don't suppose they ever had a very high opinion of me, anyway. I'm sure now that I can survive the gossip."  
  


 

* * *

 

  
  
The garden staff are housed in a cluster of small cottages just beyond the walled orchard, abutting the stable yard. They're simple two-up two-down buildings, similar to those that proliferate along Old Town's streets; nothing fancy, but well-made and sturdy enough to withstand even the fiercest winters.  
  
The under-gardeners are all stacked three or four to a bedroom in the other cottages, but Ivan and his sister have one to themselves, set far enough back from the rest that there's space for a little garden in front of it. At this time of year, it's not much to look at, but crammed full of so many plants that it's likely a riot of colour come spring.  
  
There's a climbing rose wound around the front doorframe, and when Ivan answers the door to Francis' knock and steps through it, his shoulders brush against the thorny stems on both sides, completely filling the space. At a distance, it hadn't been obvious, but he's a huge bear of a man, one who makes Alasdair feel small in comparison, somehow, despite his being the taller of the two of them, and perhaps even slightly broader across the chest.  
  
After shooting a quick, baffled glance at Francis' face, Ivan bows low and then stares meekly down at his boots. "Your Highness," he says, only the very mildest of questions in the slight uplift of his tone.  
  
"Centurion," Francis whispers in reply, the word barely more than a breath.  
  
A bright, beaming smile breaks over Ivan's face then, and he invites Francis into his home with a wide, welcoming sweep of his arm. Once all three of them are inside and the door is barred against curious eyes once more, Ivan enfolds Francis in a close hug that Francis sinks and then seems to disappear into, his forehead pressed tight against Ivan's mammoth shoulder.  
  
"My friend," Ivan says with true warmth. "It is good to see you."  
  
He rests his cheek against the crown of Francis' head for a moment, then eases him slowly and carefully away before descending upon Alasdair with his hand outstretched.  
  
"And you too, Alasdair," he says. "I've heard so much about you."  
  
Alasdair really doesn't want to know. "Likewise," he says, accepting the handshake.  
  
Ivan's grip is strong, but he doesn't engage in the pissing contest most large men attempt to start with Alasdair by grinding his knuckles together, and their contact is brief, soon dropped so that Ivan can usher both Alasdair and Francis towards the long sofa that dominates his small front room. Once they are settled there to his satisfaction, he bustles away to fetch them some tea, which he reassures Francis he was in the midst of making anyway when Francis protests that he needn't go to the trouble.  
  
He soon returns with a tray bearing a squat brown teapot and three matching cups, which he fills with a light, steaming brew that smells faintly of rose hips before sitting himself on the narrow, stiff-backed armchair that's set at an oblique angle to the sofa.  
  
For a while, whilst they wait for their tea to cool enough to drink, no-one says anything, and Alasdair uses this opportunity to take stock of their surroundings. Although it's small, the room seems bright and airy. The whitewash on the walls is dazzlingly clean, the floorboards underfoot shining. There are shelves stuffed full to overflowing with books by the door to the kitchen, colourful curtains swagged about the windows, and beneath them, on the sills, sit vases filled with branches covered in berries and glossy evergreen leaves.  
  
It looks like a home, regardless of Ivan's true reasons for living there.  
  
"I have a serious matter I need to discuss with you," Francis says eventually, setting his cup down on the little table to his side, untasted. "I would never have imposed myself upon you otherwise."  
  
"You're never an imposition, Francis," Ivan protests, which makes Francis smile, if only very briefly before he grows grave once more.  
  
"I suppose you've heard what happened to M. Martinez and Mme. Spenser," he says.  
  
Ivan nods. "Katyusha learnt of it before I did, talking to her friends in Old Town. I thought..." He pauses, slanting a suspicious glance towards Alasdair. "I was surprised I did not hear it first from you."  
  
"I would have written to tell you all the details, but it's been brought to my attention that some  things should not be conveyed in writing," Francis says. "Letters do seem to have a nasty habit of going astray."  
  
Ivan inhales sharply, his eyes growing round and wide. "Surely you don't think I—"  
  
"I never suspected you for a moment," Francis is quick to reassure him. "Or Katyusha, or Natalia."  
  
"Natalia?" Alasdair asks. He's never heard mention of the name before.  
  
"Ivan's other sister," Francis says. "She lives near Luguvalium, close to the border, and helps arrange safe passage to Caledonia for our... associates."  
  
Ivan gapes at him in shock, and then turns in his seat to study Alasdair appraisingly. "So you've told him everything, then?" he asks.  
  
"I have," Francis says. "You have nothing to fear from Corporal Kirkland, _mon ami_. He is a man of integrity. I trust him with my life."  
  
Ivan looks a little sceptical - Alasdair can't fault him for that; he still can't quite believe it himself - but ultimately seems willing to take Francis at his word. "Then so do I," he says. He smiles then, and there's something sly about the curve of his lips. "I had heard the two of you had become very good friends."  
  
"Whatever people might be saying, we _are_ just friends," Francis says. "Nothing more."  
  
His voice is low and ardent, his expression serious, suggesting he finds it imperative that Ivan believes him in this, despite how dismissive he'd been about gossip earlier.  
  
Ivan nods again, and then says, very earnestly: "And I'm glad you have that, Francis."  
  
A faint blush rises to Francis' cheeks. "Yes, well, enough of my personal life," he says, tugging fussily at his shirt cuffs. "It's a dreary topic at the best of times, and we have more important things to discuss.  
  
"Such as letters. Aly and I fear that the letters I wrote to you may have fallen into the wrong hands. Now, I know you would never have shared them with anyone willingly, but is there any possibility that someone could have read one or more of them before you had chance to dispose of them? A visitor, perhaps?"  
  
"We never have any," Ivan says. Before Alasdair's heart doesn't have chance to finish sinking before Ivan's brow furrows and he falteringly adds, "Except..."  
  
"Except what?" Francis asks, leaning forward eagerly in his seat when Ivan pauses to gather his thoughts.  
  
"Except I suppose there might be someone," Ivan says. "I have taken my tea a time or two with your secretary, Mr Jansen."

 

 


	57. Chapter 57

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ... Okay, now I've got back in the rhythm of this, I'm desperate to reach the end, especially as there's some stuff there that I'm very much looking forward to writing! Hopefully, I should be able to get it finished within the next week or two, at this rate...

* * *

 

"M. Jansen?" Francis says, half-laughing the name as though there's something inherently ludicrous about it. As though he, like Alasdair, cannot imagine his starchy and self-contained secretary doing anything as frivolous as taking a meal in the company of another person when he could instead consume a nourishing gruel at his desk and not lose a moment of time when he could be working instead. "I didn't realise the two of you were on such friendly terms."  
  
"Of course we are." Ivan, too, looks baffled. "Do you not know who he is?"  
  
"He's twenty-six, raised in Old Town, and worked as Lord Churchfield's secretary for two years." Francis shrugs. "That's is the sum total of what I know about the man."  
  
"Ah, I had presumed that you chose to employ him because you recognised him," Ivan says. "He served in your Legion, and my century."  
  
"He did?" Francis pales and sinks back heavily in his seat, his breath rushing out in a gasp through his laxly parted lips. "How...? I took pains to learn the faces of all the men and women under your command, Cassius, and I studied the full army list many times. But, no, I never recognised him, or his name."  
  
"I wouldn't blame yourself too harshly for either, Francis," Ivan says. "His five year service came to an end just two months after you were appointed as our Legate, and he was calling himself David Bakker then. I don't know when or why he changed it. As he never asked me why I'd taken a new name, I did him the same courtesy."  
  
This last is said with a censorious look directed towards Francis for his slip of the tongue, but Francis does not see it. He is staring rigidly ahead, clearly lost in his memories, but whatever he sees there doesn't help him, because at length he admits, "I honestly don't recall him, and he's never once mentioned that he was in the army."  
  
He sounds stunned, but Alasdair remembers the way M. Jansen had strutted across the palace's hallway with clockwork military precision the morning after Francis had stayed at the apothecary, and he wonders how Francis had missed the signs. He'd even scoffed at the very idea of it, when Alasdair guessed he might be Francis' centurion.  
  
Perhaps, despite his willingness to flirt with an underling if he took a fancy to them, he really does think of his servants as moving wallpaper, just as his cousin does, and never paid them enough attention to pick up on the little details like that.  
  
"I told you I thought he might have been an army man," Alasdair says, "but you dismissed it out of hand."  
  
"I couldn't believe that of him," Francis says, shaking his head. "I had noticed that stands to attention at times, that he marches about the place and orders his office like a billet, but he's neat and precise man everything he does, so I just assumed it to be a natural instinct for him.  
  
"He always seemed clueless about military matters when we discussed them in our work, and showed no interest in learning more. In fact, I got the impression he found the entire subject distasteful."  
  
"He does," Ivan says. "He told me once that he grew up in a very hard, low place, and feared he would end up turning to crime if he stayed. He enlisted to take himself away from there, in the hopes of a better life, but the army did not suit him and he does not like to remember his time in service. I thought him a fine soldier, but he found that he abhors violence, and so he struggled. I looked out for him as best I could."  
  
"You took him under your wing," Francis says, smiling softly, "as you did with me."  
  
"I did, and he managed, he survived, and then he came back and found his better life. Here, in the palace." Ivan drains his cup, refills it from the teapot, then offers to do the same for Alasdair and Francis. They both decline. "I saw him that first day when he started working for you," he continues when he sits back down, "but I thought he hadn't seen me, and I was grateful for that. I meant to keep my distance from him, ensure that our paths never crossed, but that evening, he visited me here.  
  
"I was terrified, because I was sure he would recognise me" - Ivan runs his fingers through the long fringe of his light blond hair, tugging a few strands forward until they tumble down in front of his eyes - "despite all the changes I've made. And he did, though I thought it strange then that he did not seem particularly surprised to see me alive. A man who was supposedly murdered in your bed."  
  
"So you've heard those rumours, too." Francis rolls his eyes. "Some people have very vivid imaginations."  
  
Ivan chuckles. "They have," he says. "David - Luca - is not one of them, though. Perhaps that is why he never believed the gossip. Anyway, he was quick to reassure me that he would keep the secret of my true identity, that he was certain that I had good reason for all this... this subterfuge, and he would not betray me to anyone, not even his governor.  
  
"That is something I know must have pained him, because he is a man with a rigid view of the world and his place in it. The correct order of things. But he wanted to do that for me, in thanks for how I had cared for him before.  
  
"I was so relieved, that... Well, I'm afraid I said a little too much, Francis. I told him that he didn't ever have to worry about you finding out about me, because you had been the one who had helped bring me here. That something terrible had happened, I had no choice but to desert, and you arranged everything.  
  
"He seemed grateful for that, as far as I could tell, but those were the last words we shared on the matter. As I said, he does not like to talk of his time in the army, or anything related to it. We dined together several times after that, but spoke only of trivial matters. The weather, my flowers, and so on."  
  
Francis blinks slowly, like a man waking from a deep sleep. "Ah, yes," he says, "those other visits. Did you ever leave him alone during them?"  
  
"For a moment or two, maybe, when I visited the privy," Ivan says, his cheeks pinking. "Never more than that. And I can't believe Luca's the kind of person to go rooting through another man's possessions."  
  
"No, I'd hardly call that the correct order of things," Francis says, nodding. "No doubt you're right, but I think we should still go and have words with M. Jansen, anyway, just to make sure. He might have seen something suspicious whilst he was here. A stranger sniffing around, perhaps." He gets to his feet, extending his hand for Ivan to shake. "Thank you for your time. You've been very helpful."  
  
Ivan ignores the hand in favour of hugging Francis so tightly that his feet leave the floor a little way, and then he sends Alasdair on his way with a companionable slap to the back.  
  
Francis looks contemplative as the wend their slow way through the gardens, heading back to the palace. "I can't imagine M. Jansen having anything to do with all of this," he says at length. "Scrambling over rooftops, getting his clothes dirty? It's impossible for me to picture such a thing. What do you think, Aly?"  
  
Alasdair thinks that he's missing something. Something Ivan had said niggles at him, an alarm bell faintly ringing, but he can't quite put his finger on what.  
  
He runs their conversation through in his mind again until that bell begins pealing ever louder. It was the name: David Bakker.  
  
_Bakker_. _Bakker_. He's heard it somewhere before. Recently, and in a different voice.  
  
Luise's voice.  
  
It was Luise's voice, at his bedside whilst he was recovering from being poisoned himself.

  
  
_'My Belowstreets contact did inform me about three individuals known to sell rare poisons alongside their more usual stock of dragonweed and counterfeit medicines. Mlle. Lesage,_ Mr Bakker _, and a Mr... Big Jeff. I presume they're all pseudonyms.'_

  
  
But maybe they _weren't_. Maybe at least one of them was using their real name.  
  
It all seems to fit: a childhood spent in a _low place_ ; some relative or other selling poisons and knock-off medicines. They teach marksmanship in the army, and surely it'd be easy enough to translate that to the use of a blowpipe. He'd have a steady hand, at the very least. Been taught how to move silently over difficult terrain.  
  
Alasdair's throat tightens, his stomach lurching, and he breathes out, "Fucking hell, Francis. I think he could be our man."

 

 


	58. Chapter 58

Francis breaks into a long, loping trot that Alasdair struggles to match, and by the time they reach the palace they're both panting. Alasdair's shirt is plastered to his back with sweat and Francis' face is flushed a deep crimson, something which the butler regards with evident concern when he meets them at the front door.  
  
"Your Highness, can I get—"  
  
Francis cuts him off briskly. "Where might I find M. Jansen, Styles?"  
  
Styles' mouth pinches tight, clearly displeased that his master seems determined to set off looking so uncomfortable and dishevelled, thus bringing his butlering into disrepute. "I believe he's in the rose drawing room, Your Highness," he says with chill formality. "Preparing for your meeting with the town aldermen this evening."  
  
Francis barely pauses for long enough to mutter something approaching thanks to the butler before jogging away across the hallway. When he reaches the grand, sweeping staircase at the far end of it, he bounds up the steps, taking them two at a time.  
  
Alasdair doesn't catch up with him until he comes into sight of doorway to the drawing room itself. Francis is standing doubled over beside it, hands braced against his thighs and shoulders hitching as he fights to bring his breathing under control.  
  
Alasdair slumps against the wall next to him, his own lungs burning. It takes him a moment or two to drag in enough air that he can gasp out, "What the fuck was that in aid of, Francis? Why the rush?"  
  
"News travels fast here," Francis says, slowly straightening up out of his hunch. "I thought that word of our visit to Ivan could have arrived at the palace before us, perhaps even reached M. Jansen's ears already. And... Well, if what you think is true, then that could have scared him into running.

"Makes sense," Alasdair says. "Only one way to find out if you're right..."  
  
He eases open the drawing room door a little way and pokes his head through the gap. Inside, the sofas have been pushed back to allow room for a long table, at the head of which M. Jansen is sitting, frowning over a large stack of papers.  
  
Alasdair draws back far enough that he can whisper, close against Francis' ear: "He's in there."  
  
Francis smooths down his hair, adjusts the fall of his coat tails, and then nods. "Shall we?" he asks.  
  
Alasdair throws the door open all the way, and though its handle hits the wall behind it with a loud thud, M. Jansen doesn't look up from his work until Francis enters the room and his footsteps sound out, clattering across the polished floorboards.  
  
He springs nimbly from his chair, then, and offers one of his stiff little bows. "Your Highness."  
  
Francis accepts the greeting with a thin, watery smile. "As you were, M. Jansen," he says. "Please, sit."  
  
M. Jansen does so without hesitation, without a single flicker of unease disturbing the usual serene composure of his expression, and the sight lifts some of the tense weight still sitting crushingly heavy on Alasdair's chest. If M. Jansen is indeed their murderer, he can't possibly have caught wind that they've been talking to Ivan, or even have the faintest inkling that he's under suspicion. No-one could remain that self-possessed under those circumstances, no matter how unemotional they might be in the normal course of things.  
  
There's a silver tray set at the centre of the table, bearing a bowl of fruit, six crystal cut glasses, and a bottle of red wine. Francis' eyes light up when he sees it, and he grasps hold of it with avaricious hands, uncorks it, then fills two of the glasses until they're brimming.  
  
"This is the last of this particular shipment I had in the cellars," he says to Alasdair as he hands him one of the glasses, "but I think we need it now more than the aldermen. They'll just have to make do with a lesser vintage, I'm afraid."  
  
Francis gulps his own wine down quickly, then refills the glass before taking a seat to the right of M. Jansen.  
  
Alasdair takes a far more conservative sip from his own glass. It helps to sooth his parched throat, and its warmth eases the tired ache of his muscles somewhat, but he doesn't much like the taste, for all that it's supposedly one of the better wines Francis has in stock. It's a little too acidic, and leaves behind a faint bitter aftertaste that puckers the inside of his mouth.  
  
But now's neither the time or the place to question Francis' palate, so he keeps his criticism to himself, and sits himself down on the chair opposite Francis' in silence.  
  
M. Jansen is staring down at his hands, resting, clasped together on the table in front of him, and Francis mouths to Alasdair over the top of the secretary's bowed head, 'Leave this to me.'  
  
To M. Jansen he says: "We were just talking to Ivan, and—"  
  
"Cassius," M. Jansen says in a sharp tone that Alasdair has never heard him use before.  
  
It seems Francis hasn't, either, because he gapes at the man soundlessly for a moment, clearly taken aback. "Yes, Cassius," he confirms eventually. "Why did you never mention that you served in the army, M. Jansen?"  
  
M. Jansen's fingers twitch almost imperceptibly. If Alasdair hadn't been watching him so closely, he never would have noticed. Francis will surely have missed seeing it; he hasn't looked away from M. Jansen's face for so much as an instant.  
  
"It didn't seem relevant," M. Jansen says.  
  
"But I was your commanding officer!"  
  
"Only very briefly. I didn't think you'd recognise me." M. Jansen glances up at Francis, and his eyes are empty. There's no accusation in them, no censure. There's nothing at all. "And I was right."  
  
Francis' own eyes soften, his brow furrows, and when he opens his mouth to speak, Alasdair's certain he's about to offer an apology for that, leading them off down a useless sidetrack for gods knows how long.  
  
"What do you suppose we were talking to Cassius about, M. Jansen?" he asks, hoping to keep them better on course.  
  
M. Jansen swings that blank-eyed gaze towards him. "The letters," he says.  
  
Francis makes a strangled choking noise, and Alasdair's heart races, thudding painfully hard against his ribs. He wants to lean over, grab M. Jansen's collar and haul him straight down to the guardhouse, but he fights the urge. Knowing about the letters might not be proof of anything; Francis was convinced of that when it came to his cousin, after all. There may be something approaching an innocent explanation in M. Jansen's case, too.  
  
Alasdair swallows a mouthful of wine in an effort to calm his nerves, and then asks, "And what letters would those be?"  
  
His voice still wavers, weak and raspy, but M. Jansen's, in contrast, is completely level.  
  
"The letters His Highness was leaving for Cassius in the conservatory."  
  
Francis screws his eyes closed, as though he can't bear to look at M. Jansen any longer. "How... How did you find out about them?" he asks.  
  
"I happened to be passing by the room when Your Highness' brother was showing another letter you'd received to his sister and cousins. They were discussing it quite openly, seemingly with no thought to who might overhear." Or, at least, with no thought to the servants, by Lovino's account. "I would have continued on my way without pausing, but I heard them mention a Seeker, and—"  
  
"You know about the Seekers?" Francis asks.  
  
M. Jansen bobs his head in answer, just once. "I know they're dangerous, too. I had to stop then, and hear everything Prince Alfred had to say. He said that a Seeker had written that letter, asking for your aid, and he was worried that you would be tempted to give it.  
  
"I managed to catch sight of the letter, as he was waving it around, and recognised the handwriting on it instantly."  
  
"You did?" Alasdair asks, leaning forward eagerly in his seat. The Seeker has been a missing link through all of this, and knowing their name might still prove valuable.  
  
"I was Lord Churchfield's secretary for two years before I took up my post here," M. Jansen says, "and was well acquainted with his hand, and those of all of his family. His daughter, Lady Alice, had written that note."  
  
Lady Alice Churchfield, who had been dancing so closely with Francis on the night of Lady Foster's ball; close enough to slip a note in his pocket, severing their association.  
  
"The Churchfields are fanatically loyal to the Empire," M. Jansen continues, "and I knew Lady Alice to be very dedicated to her work as a Seeker, so I was concerned that what she was asking of you, Your Highness, was merely a scheme to try and trick you into committing treason so they could then denounce you to the Emperor."  
  
Francis startles at that, his eyes shocking wide open once more. "Why on earth would they want to do so?" he asks. "My dealings with them have never been anything but perfectly cordial."  
  
M. Jansen parts his hands one from another, and then clasps them together again, his fingers intertwined even more tightly than before. "As his secretary, I was permitted to read all of Lord Churchfield's correspondence and records. It was there that I first learnt that Cassius had not been killed, as rumour had it, but was instead a fugitive, condemned to face execution  for having magic if he were ever caught.  
  
"I also learnt that you were suspected in aiding his desertion from the army, and, in a letter to Lord Churchfield from your father, that you were known to have sympathies for those who use magic. Your father asked him to watch you closely, and report any evidence of such immediately."  
  
Francis takes a deep breath in, then sighs it out shakily. "And did he send any reports of that nature?" he asks.  
  
"Not whilst I was there," M. Jansen says. "As I said, when I heard what was said in Lady Alice's letter, I did fear that it was an attempt at entrapment. Lord Churchfield is eager to curry favour with the Imperial families, and, I'm afraid to say, your father doesn't seem especially fond of you, Your Highness. Lord Churchfield often said that he'd jump at the chance to rid himself of you, if he were offered one."  
  
Francis snorts loudly. "That wouldn't surprise me, M. Jansen," he says, shaking head. "What does, though, is that you were privy to such sensitive documents, and such private thoughts."  
  
"I was his personal secretary," M. Jansen says, his words tinged with emotion for the first time since they sat down together, bristling with offended pride, "and he knew he could count on my complete discretion. He never even insinuated that I couldn't be trusted to keep his secrets, even after I left his employ and started working for you, Your Highness."  
  
"And yet here you are," Alasdair says, "spilling his secrets."  
  
"It hardly seems to matter now." M. Jansen's mouth tilts up infinitesimally at its corners. "Anyway, I watched you as carefully as I dared, after that, in the hopes that I might discover how you intended to act on what Lady Alice had told you, and—"  
  
"If you thought it might bring me into harm's way, why didn't you warn me," Francis asks.  
  
"You're my governor and an Imperial prince, Your Highness, it isn't my place to tell you what you should or should not do," M. Jansen says, sounding even more offended now. "And, besides, your brother did say that you would never listen to them, to your own family, if they tried to talk to you about it. What hope did I have?"  
  
Francis frowns, obviously displeased that he can't refute that, and then waves his hand to encourage M. Jansen to resume his story.  
  
"Eventually, I saw you hiding a letter in the conservatory, and - I'm sorry to say so, Your Highness, as I know I'm prohibited from entering it - went in to read it after you left. Then..."  
  
M. Jansen stumbles over his words, his face draining of colour, and says nothing more.  
  
"Then you found out where these fugitives from the Seekers were meant to be meeting Cassius and set out to murder them," Alasdair guesses, hoping to provoke M. Jansen into speaking again, even if it's only to defend himself against such accusations. The man clearly knows more about what's been happening lately, at the very least. "Are you still loyal to the Churchfields? Share their hatred of those who use magic? Do you—"  
  
"I never meant to kill anyone!" M. Jansen cries out, suddenly and desperately.  
  
Alasdair's heart starts beating dizzyingly fast again, and he takes another calming swig of wine. It doesn't help, and his head swims afterwards, his vision blurring around the edges. He hasn't recovered well enough from his own poisoning to be drinking alcohol, seemingly, but it's too late to worry about that now.  
  
"So you... You admit to attacking M. Martinez and Mrs Spenser?" Francis asks, his voice dragging tiredly. And he does look exhausted, his skin waxy and shoulders drooping. Alasdair supposes it must be the shock of finding out he's been betrayed by someone with whom he works so closely every day.  
  
"I do," M. Jansen says, cool and composed once more.  
  
"But _why_ , M. Jansen?" Francis asks, rubbing at his temples as though they pain him. "If you're speaking the truth, and never meant to kill them?"  
  
"I did it to protect you, Your Highness. You and Cassius." M. Jansen gets to his feet and begins pacing back and forth behind his chair. Alasdair wants to track him carefully, watch out for any sudden movements, but trying to force his eyes to focus properly makes his head pound. He can only hope Francis is paying the close attention he's unable to. "It wasn't my place to question, but I had to do _something_."  
  
"You had to poison them?" Alasdair asks, but M. Jansen ignores him.  
  
"I was born Belowstreets," he says. "I don't know if you've heard of them, Your Highness, but they're where the worst elements of this town end up. My family has worked there for generations, and I like to think they're better than most of the people there; they don't lie, and cheat, and steal like the rest of them, just deal in those goods that the Empire would prefer its people didn't have. Even so, that wasn't how I wanted to live my life, so I joined the army as soon as I came of age, because I knew they'd train me up, teach me my letters; things I could use to better my position when I left.  
  
"But I hated it. Hated the mud, and the sweat, and the fear, and the violence. Even though they'd have put me to death for it, I wanted to desert before I was transferred to Cassius' century. He took care of me, then, helped me cope, helped me _survive_. I owe him my life.  
  
"When I read that he'd been sentenced to death for his magic, I was horrified. He'd given fifteen years of his life to the Empire, served loyally, and still they turned on him, like that." M. Jansen clicks his fingers to emphasise the last word. "I knew he wasn't dangerous. I knew he was nothing but a good man. Isn't that so, Your Highness?"  
  
Francis nods vaguely. His eyes are a little glazed, clearly still in shock.  
  
"And I know you're a good man, Your Highness. You saved Cassius' life, even though you could have been killed for that yourself. When the position of your secretary became available, I knew I had to try for it. I wanted to help you in any little way I could, though it was scarcely enough to repay you for what you'd done.  
  
"Then, when I found out you and Cassius might be in danger, I knew I had to do anything I could to protect you, as you protected Cassius and he protected me.  
  
"I meant only to show you of how perilous your work with those fugitives really was. I thought that if they were attacked, injured, every time Cassius went to meet with them, then surely he would believe that you had been compromised, that he was being watched, and he would persuade you that it was too dangerous to continue. Though it seems it never _was_ a scheme on Lady Alice's part, given that that trap was never sprung, the Empire has eyes everywhere, as you well know, and I was certain you'd be found out eventually.  
  
"So I went to the conservatory every day after we read through your correspondence, to check for your letters. If I found one there, I would change the time that you'd asked him to meet the fugitive a little, so he wasn't likely to arrive too early and disturb me at my own work. Then, I'd hide myself up on the rooftops, and wait until I had a good shot.  
  
"I really did mean only to injure those poor people, Your Highness. My brother sells all manner of poisons Belowstreets, but I just bought medicines from him. Medicines that were supposed to do nothing more than knock those poor people out, perhaps make them a little nauseous, a little headsore.  
  
"But I used too much that first time, I think, or else my brother had been sold some tainted stock. I used less the second time, and even less the third." He stops for a moment to grin at Alasdair; the only true smile he's ever seen on the man's face. "And what I'd done worked, didn't it? It was you that time, Corporal Kirkland. You didn't dare send Mr Horton to meet Cassius for fear of what might happen to to him. It's stopped for good, now."  
  
"Aye," Alasdair says, "it has, but I would hardly say anything you did was _good_ , M. Jansen. It might well have been an accident, but you still killed M. Martinez, and I'm still going to have to arrest you." M. Jansen wouldn't normally be much in the way of an opponent, but seeing as though he's still recovering his strength after being fucking _poisoned_ by the man, he thinks it's probably best to have some backup. "Francis, can you call for your guards?"  
  
Francis doesn't reply.  
  
Alasdair turns his head towards him with some difficulty, because it's almost too heavy to move. Francis' form is just as blurred as the rest of the room, but Alasdair can just about make out that he's slumped down low in his chair, his chin resting against his chest. He isn't moving.  
  
"Francis!" Alasdair shouts with more urgency, trying to push himself up out of his chair. But his arms can't bear his weight, and shiver and shake and then give out, toppling him straight back down again. He can't move his legs.  
  
His tongue seems to be swelling, too, filling up his mouth so there's barely enough room to form words. "What...?" he manages at length to spit out. "What the fuck have you done to us?"  
  
"A sedative," M. Jansen says, leaning close to him. His face swims into view, as pale and featureless as the moon. "In the wine. It won't do you any lasting harm. I really have never wanted to hurt anyone."  
  
"Why?" The question's little better that a formless wheeze of air, but M. Jansen answers it anyway.  
  
"A murderer who worked for a governor? An Imperial prince? One who has past ties with Lord Churchfield? They'll never let the Town Guard question me, Corporal. Once word reaches the ear of an Imperial agent, they'll take me to Roma. I know what they do to enemies of the Empire there - as does His Highness; his father took him there to watch them at their work - and I fear I might not be able to withstand it. I fear I might tell them everything."  
  
It's too much of a struggle now to keep his eyelids open, and Alasdair lets them fall closed. In the darkness he hears M. Jansen say: "I'd never willingly betray His Highness and Cassius, and I won't let them _make_ me do it."

 

 


	59. Chapter 59

When Alasdair first wakes, there's little to distinguish between his eyes being open and closed. He blinks laboriously several times, and the haze fogging his vision slowly starts to clear. He'd rub at his eyes too, to hasten the process along, but his entire body feels as though it's suspended, floating in deep water - heavy and weightless all at once - and he hasn't quite got the strength to fight against that resistance and lift his arm.  
  
_Blink._  
  
He can see a rosy glow that must be the sunset bleeding through the drawing room windows; brighter pinpoints of light from the oil lamps.  
  
_Blink_.  
  
A confused patchwork of shadows.  
  
_Blink_.  
  
The largest of those amorphous dark shapes resolves itself into the table. There's no M. Jansen at the head of it now. He's probably long gone.  
  
Alasdair rolls his head against the back of his own chair until he can see Francis' at the other side of the table. He's still asleep, seemingly; still lax-limbed and sprawling.  
  
"Francis," Alasdair says in the hopes of rousing him, but his voice is so feeble that it barely even stirs the air. He clears his throat and tries again, "Francis." Then a deep breath and louder: "Francis!"  
  
He doesn't react, but then Alasdair's known him to sleep like the dead before, even without a belly-full of sedatives.  
  
With considerable effort, Alasdair manages to ease his arm forward, inch by arduous inch, until he can grab onto the edge of the table, which he uses to lever himself up to his feet. It's only a handful of steps from there, but each one drags as though he's picking his way through deep, sucking mud, and he's out of breath and sweating hard again by the time he reaches Francis' side.  
  
Francis' chair is pushed back far enough that Alasdair can crouch down in front of him, though it's a tight squeeze; his knees crushed against the chair legs in front, the corner of the tabletop digging into the back of his neck behind.  
  
Alasdair takes up one of Francis' hands from where it's laying, curled loosely against his thigh, and slides two shaking fingers across Francis' cool palm to the pulse point just above its heel. He can't feel anything, but then his own hands do seem even clumsier and more insensate than usual, as though he's wearing a pair of thick woolen mittens that muffle everything he touches.  
  
He places his other hand flat against Francis' chest, just to the left of centre where his heart should be beating the hardest, but there's nothing. Except... Except Francis' coat is made of a dense woolen broadcloth, and about thick enough to stop a bullet, so that might not mean anything at all.  
  
Then again, Francis had guzzled down an entire glass of the tainted wine. Alasdair's both taller and broader, likely outweighs him by a good four stone or more, and three mouthfuls of the stuff knocked him out cold. M. Jansen's already proven that he's dangerously inept at judging the dosage of such things, so—  
  
The throat. The throat's where his pulse should be the strongest.  
  
Alasdair wraps both hands around Francis' neck, and in desperation digs his thumbs perhaps a little too roughly into the thin skin beneath the hinge of Francis' jaw. There is a pulse there, just a weak flutter, but it's something. It's life.  
  
Many years ago, Gabriella had taught Alasdair how to bring a person out of a swoon, but it's been too long, his thoughts are too jumbled, and all he can remember is that he should be applying the smelling salts he doesn't actually have.  
  
"Shit," he says, just to vent some of his fear and frustration. It doesn't much help. "Shit, shit, shit, sh—"  
  
"In the stories, the best remedy in these situations is always a kiss."  
  
Francis' voice is rough and reedy, stripped of all its normal lilting musicality, but still, in this moment, one of the finest things Alasdair has ever heard. Relief rushes through him, a bubbling heat spreading up through his stomach and chest. It makes him light-headed, disoriented, and his only clear thought is that Francis suggestion sounds like a good one.  
  
At first, it's more of a clash of mouths than a kiss, because Alasdair's still dizzied and pitches forward into it far too swiftly. But then Francis clutches his shoulders, steadying him, and everything softens and slows.  
  
It's close-lipped and relatively chaste, much like the kisses he'd shared with Gilbert and Luise over a decade before, but with them, he'd only been aware of the pressure of their lips against his and the uncomfortable feeling that he was missing something.  
  
Now, he's acutely aware of the weight of Francis' hands, and the warmth of them, seeping down through his shirt. Aware, too, of Francis' breathing: rapid and a little erratic, but reassuringly strong.  
  
Suddenly, Francis' grip on Alasdair's shoulders tightens and he pushes back sharply, breaking them apart.  
  
"I'm sorry," he says, sounding stricken. "I was only teasing, Aly, and... I'm so sorry."  
  
"Don't be," Alasdair says. "That was all on me."  
  
"If you say," Francis replies stiffly, twisting his head aside; obviously either unwilling or unable to meet Alasdair's eyes.  
  
"I do. Look, Francis, you didn't—"  
  
"No sign of M. Jansen, I see. I presume he's long since gone."  
  
Alasdair sighs, but doesn't protest the abrupt change in subject. They'll have time enough to talk later, and there are more pressing matters to deal with, after all.  
  
"I'd presume so, too, but then it has been..."  
  
Alasdair tries to take his watch out of his trouser pocket, but, with the material pulling tight across his hips in his crouched position, and elbow space at a premium besides, he can't quite get a proper grip on it. He stands up straight, and Francis grimaces, presumably reading too much and entirely the wrong thing into the movement, and thinking that Alasdair is eager to put some more distance between them.  
  
As Alasdair liberates his watch with one hand, he reaches down to give Francis' shoulder a squeeze with the other. Francis clearly doesn't take any of the reassurance from it that Alasdair had been offering. His muscles are bunched uncomfortably tight, and he very quickly shrugs off the touch.  
  
_Plenty of time later_ , Alasdair reminds himself, and flips open his watch.  
  
"Shit, almost two hours," he says after glancing at its face. "M. Jansen's likely miles away by now."  
  
"Then we shouldn't waste any more time," Francis says, pushing himself slowly up from his seat. "I'll ring for my guards."  
  
"M. Jansen warned against that," Alasdair says, catching light hold of Francis' sleeve. It isn't meant to stop him, merely caution him to slow down, but Francis freezes instantly. "You likely didn't hear him, I think you were pretty much down for the count by then, but he was convinced he would be taken to Roma if he was caught. He said you'd know what they'd do to him there. He seemed certain they'd get him to talk somehow, and he'd spill everything. About Cassius, about you, and everything you've been doing here."  
  
"No doubt they could," Francis says. There's no inflection to his voice, but his complexion has greyed and his eyes are shadowed. "I've seen the Imperial torturers about their work, and they're inventive and exceedingly thorough.  
  
"Still, he should be brought to justice, if possible. For Mrs Spenser and M. Martinez' sake, and for their families. As their governor, I owe them that, and I shouldn't bend the laws of this land simply because it suits me better to do so.  
  
"I won't allow any harm to come to Cassius, and I can arrange for him to be hidden again. As for me... Well, I never expected to be able to live out the rest of my life here in safety. My father would always have found an excuse to have me executed, it just might end up being sooner than I had anticipated. I can exile myself from the Empire, if needs be. I've already made my peace with that."  
  
He really is incredibly, _ridiculously_ brave. Alasdair doesn't understand how he can't see it.  
  
"Okay," he says. "Ring for your guards, then. Ask someone to send word to Luise, too. She'll want to hear about this. Though I propose we don't tell her everything we know of M. Jansen's motives. No point in getting into all that until we have no choice in the matter.  
  
Francis nods once. "Agreed."  
  
"Oh, and we might want Gabs to come and give us a once over, as well," Alasdair says. "Make sure we're not about to keel over from what M. Jansen did to us."

 

 

* * *

 

  
  
For the next couple of hours, a near-constant procession of people streams in and out of the rose drawing room.  
  
First comes Captain Jenkins of the palace guard, who is ordered, with his men, to scour the palace and grounds for any trace of M. Jansen.  
  
He is followed by the town aldermen, promptly on time for their meeting with His Highness. Francis very politely but firmly sends them on their way again, but not before they've managed to extract a promise that their next audience with him will run twice as long as this one had been planned to.  
  
Gabriella arrives not long after the aldermen depart. She prods and pokes at them, listens to their hearts and inspects their tongues, then pronounces them unlikely to die in the near future. Before she leaves, she does suggest that they need rest to help them recover from the after-effects of the drug M. Jansen had dosed them with, but there's little chance of that as Captain Jenkins soon returns to deliver his report regarding the results of the guards' search.  
  
Apparently, M. Jansen's room is as clean and tidy as the day he moved in; no telling personal belongings, damning letters, or helpful clues left behind. All of the staff have been questioned, both inside and out, and he had spoken to no-one of his plans. One of the maids did see him leaving the palace and setting out across the grounds, but as she hadn't thought the sight particularly unusual at the time, she hadn't taken any note of his direction.  
  
Luise is their last visitor of the day, and she marches towards them with her notebook already in hand. Francis seems disinclined to speak to her beyond a greeting and bland pleasantries, so concocting a sanitised version of recent events falls entirely on Alasdair's shoulders.  
  
He makes no mention of Francis' scheme, magic, M. Jansen's time in the army, or Cassius; leaving out everything of real substance beyond M. Jansen's name. It makes the whole thing sound completely senseless.  
  
Luise dutifully writes down his account, but she's frowning throughout and clearly suspicious that he's not telling her the full story.  
  
"So, after you confronted him, M. Jansen confessed to murdering M. Martinez, and attacking you and Mrs Spenser," she says after reading back through her notes once Alasdair has finished speaking, "but he offered no explanation as to what his motives were?"  
  
"Not a word, sir," Alasdair says.  
  
"Even if he had," Francis stirs himself to put in, "who's to say they would even have made sense to you or I, Captain? Anyway, his motives matter much less than his current whereabouts, surely."  
  
Luise continues to look unconvinced, but nevertheless concedes: "Of course, Your Highness. And to that end, I'll post guards at the docks, in case he tries to book passage to Hibernia, and alert the guard in Luguvalium, so they can keep watch for him crossing over the Caledonian border.  
  
"Given what you told me about his brother, though, I fear we may never catch him. Those Belowstreets have their own ways and means of smuggling people out of Brittania, and they're a secret even my contact is likely to be unwilling to share.  
  
"Right." Luise snaps her notebook closed. "We'll leave it there for now. You look tired, Aly, and Gabriella told me you needed to rest after everything that's happened. You can take tomorrow off on full pay, but I expect you at the guardhouse at nine the day after for a debrief."  
  
"Yes, sir," Alasdair says with a salute.  
  
Luise returns the salute, and then leaves the room as briskly as she'd entered it. After a moment or two, when no-one arrives to replace her, Alasdair finally lets all of the exhaustion he's been keeping at bay wash over him.  
  
He'd gladly take straight to his bed, but he's sure he can find enough enough energy to spare to continue the discussion Francis had so brusquely curtailed earlier. It seems like the sort of thing that will fester between them if they leave it too long.  
  
"Francis, I think we should talk about—"  
  
"I'm going to bed," Francis says in a flat, listless tone. "We can talk in the morning, if you insist on it."

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nearly there... Can hardly believe it myself!


	60. Chapter 60

Alasdair wakes at a little after ten; much later than had been his habit when he first came to the palace, but then there's no longer any M. Jansen there to rap officiously at the door and complain that they're going to be late for Francis' letter reading.  
  
As there's also no longer any need for him to play the part of Francis' personal guard, Alasdair dresses in his own shirt and trousers after his morning ablutions. Though he's not going to miss the kilt, it's a shame to leave behind the faux-military outfit Francis had had made. He'd liked the way it looked on him, but he can't imagine he'll ever have another excuse to wear it.  
  
Besides, Francis should probably look into hiring himself a real personal guard, and they'll need a uniform. Mlle. Labelle will doubtless be able to adjust it to fit anyone he might hire.  
  
So he leaves both kilt and uniform hanging in the wardrobe, but gathers together the few other items of clothing he'd brought from the apothecary and throws them into a pile on the bed.  
  
He's fishing underneath it for the bag he'd kicked there after he and Francis returned from their hillside tree vigil, when a soft, shuffling noise attracts his attention towards the open doorway of his room, where Francis is standing, one shoulder leant against the jamb.  
  
He looks no more rested than when they'd parted for the night, and is dressed in a simple white shirt and shapeless black trousers. His hair is pulled back into an uncharacteristically sloppy, loose tail from which a riot of wispy curls have escaped to frame his wan face.  
  
"Packing already?" he asks. "I thought you'd at least stay for your luncheon."  
  
"Naw, you heard my captain; I've got work tomorrow," Alasdair says. "I wanted to give myself enough time to catch up with my brothers and get properly settled at home again before the daily grind starts back up."  
  
Francis nods, and then says, so quietly that it almost sounds as though he's talking to himself, "And then we'll never see one another again."  
  
"What makes you say that?"  
  
"You told me so yourself. You said that we could never be friends."  
  
Francis looks to be hurt by that still, as though he has been chewing over it this all this time and taken a personal insult from it that was never intended.  
  
"I do consider you my friend, Francis," Alasdair reassures him. "After everything we've been through lately, how could I not? But it won't be the same after I leave here. It _can't_ be. People would talk, otherwise."  
  
"I got the impression that you weren't as troubled by that as you had been," Francis says, a little petulantly.  
  
"I'm not, but then it has only been a couple of weeks, and once we've stopped being thrown together like we have been, people will grow tired of it. They'll forget. But if we keep on passing time together on the regular, the gossip will only get worse. That'd be no good for either of us."  
  
"And I told you before, I don't care," Francis says, overemphasising the last three words.  
  
Alasdair had been afraid that they'd end up rehashing this argument when the time came, as Francis hadn't seemed much convinced by it when they'd last discussed the matter. It has been far easier than Alasdair ever imagined to forget exactly who and what they are, working so closely together, but they'd both stepped out of their normal lives for a spell, and when he returns home again, the distance that opens between them as a consequence will be more than just physical.  
  
"Maybe not now," he says, "but I don't doubt that'll change. Whatever you might think today, you'll want to start courting eventually, and I'm sure that sort of talk will put people off the idea."  
  
Francis waves that suggestion aside with an insouciant flick of the wrist, as if it's of absolutely no consequence.  
  
"For fuck's sake, Francis," Alasdair snaps, exasperated, "how do you think it would all work out? Can you honestly see yourself drinking in the Lost Antler with me of an evening? Taking your tea at the apothecary? Or, even worse, can you imagine going to... to fucking _soirees_ and balls with me, like you would one of your noble friends?"  
  
"Yes," Francis says immediately.  
  
 Alasdair sighs. "I'd only embarrass you."  
  
"No, you wouldn't," Francis insists, his jaw set stubbornly firm.  
  
"I would," Alasdair insists himself. "I don't know how to talk to nobles - excepting yourself, I suppose. I don't have the right manners, the right clothes, the—"  
  
"I could buy them for you."  
  
"You could, but I wouldn't accept them. I don't want your charity, Francis, and I don't want to be in your debt. That's no sort of basis for a decent friendship." Alasdair knows that everything he's saying is true, that it makes sense, but he doesn't want them to part ways and never speak to one another again any more than Francis does. The perfect solution to that seems obvious, though. "Look, you've obviously got a knack for investigation and the like, so why don't you get more involved with the guards, as you said you might? I could help you with that, then we'd still be able to spend time together at the guardhouse, and so on. I can suggest it to Lu, if you like."  
  
"Yes, that would be good. Thank you," Francis says, sounding as though he doesn't mean a word of it, and then he bows stiffly. "Well, I should let you get on with your packing, then. Though" - he pauses mid-turn away from the doorway - "I was wondering if you could come and see me in my bedroom before you leave? There's something I'd like to discuss with you in private. It should only take a moment."

 

 

* * *

 

  
  
  
Although Alasadair had waited for Francis' invitation to join him in his bedroom after knocking at the door, it still feels as though he has caught him unaware.  
  
He's dressed now in frock coat, pressed trousers, and polished boots, his hair tamed in a neatly wrapped queue, but he still looks rumpled, somehow: the cuffs of his shirt uneven; some of his buttons set slightly askew.  
  
And he's walking with a short harried stride back and forth across the length of the room, stopping only when Alasdair gets tired of watching him pace and calls out his name.  
  
He halts abruptly then, and draws himself up straight and tall, his hands held together at the small of his back. He looks like a soldier awaiting inspection by his commanding officer.  
  
"Aly, I..." He swallows hard. "I feel I must apologise again for kissing you."  
  
Alasdair stares at him in confusion whilst Francis, in turn, stares at something in the middle distance beyond his left shoulder.  
  
"I kissed _you_ , Francis," Alasdair says eventually, when the silence stretches long enough that it becomes apparent Francis has rewritten history in his own mind and isn't going to correct himself.  
  
"Only because I gave you the idea that it would help me," Francis says. "You were being kind."  
  
"No, I was relieved," Alasdair says. "Relieved, and so fucking happy you were alive that it seemed like the best thing to do at the time. You didn't _force_ me, Francis. And it was... Well, I suppose it was nice."  
  
"Nice?" Francis echoes, his gaze shifting to meet Alasdair's eyes directly for the first time since he entered the room. "You enjoyed it? I thought you didn't care for such things."  
  
Francis looks so lost and bewildered that Alasdair can't help but take pity on him. He holds so many of Francis' secrets - powerful, dangerous secrets - that his own seems like a paltry offering to share in return, no matter how closely he's kept it guarded before now.

"To borrow your words, I haven't been entirely truthful with you," he says. "I didn't want to tell you before, because I thought it might give you the wrong impression, or get your hopes up unduly, but I do hope we know each other well enough by now that you won't take this the wrong way."  
  
He expects Francis to be indignant that he's been lied to, but instead he simply waits with remarkable patience for Alasdair to explain himself.  
  
But Alasdair still hates talking about this subject more than just about any other, and it takes him a long while to summon up sufficient determination to continue.  
  
"I think I might be capable of... of something. Something more... romantically?"  
  
He hates that he doesn't have the right words for this, that he can only stutter and stumble and can't give it a name. It all sounds very wishy-washy and vague, but then that does mirror his own feeling that it's something almost intangible that he can never quite put his finger on.  
  
As such, it's probably best explained by example, so he continues: "I don't know if I've ever mentioned Lukas Bondevik before, but he moved onto Ashfield Street about four years back, and opened an apothecary shop a few doors down from ours. You might have noticed it when you visited us.  
  
"Anyway, we spent a lot of time together, became good friends, and after a couple of years or so, I started to think I could want... something more from him? Not fucking or anything like, but I was definitely coming round to the idea that a kiss might be somewhere in our future.  
  
"Lukas got there before me, though; took me by surprise and tried to kiss me outside the Lost Antler. I thought he was attacking me, and headbutted him."  
  
Francis snorts loudly, looking both shocked and amused. "And how did he take that?"  
  
"Very poorly," Alasdair says with a rueful smile. "I did attempt to explain myself, but he wasn't having it. We got into an argument after that, he insulted me for... you know, for how I am, and then Dylan punched him. It ended up turning into a fucking street brawl. He accepted my apologies eventually, but I doubt we'll ever be friends again."  
  
"So, do you..." Francis takes a deep breath, and then picks through his next words with what sounds to be deliberate caution: "Do you think you might come to want that 'something more' from me?"  
  
"Maybe?" Alasdair shrugs helplessly. "I can't promise you anything, Francis. It feels a little like it did then, with Lukas, but I never got the chance to see where that leads. I could just work on a different time-scale than other people seem to, or that might be all there ever is for me. I really don't know."  
  
"But you wouldn't be averse to another kiss?" Francis asks.  
  
Even after the benefit of a night to sleep on it, Alasdair's feelings about their last kiss haven't changed. Though it was hardly the mind-shattering, life-changing experience he'd been given to believe such things could be, it was far from unpleasant.  
  
"No," he says.  
  
Francis inclines his head to one side and steps closer. Alasdair thinks he must be moving in to kiss him again, and braces himself for that, but Francis stops a few feet away. "Now, the Bard wasn't very helpful when I inquired after how best to ask this, so I'm afraid I don't know the right words. I'll just have to improvise." He straightens out his cuffs and the crookedly fastened buttons on his coat, and then says, "Aly, will you... Would you give me permission to start courting you?"  
  
Alasdair expects him to laugh, because surely, _surely_ it must be a joke, but Francis just keeps watching him steadily, his expression somewhat pensive but with no trace of mockery in it that Alasdair can discern.  
  
"You do remember that courtship's not just a fancy word for a... an _affaire de coeur_ , or whatever it is you like to call them, right? You're only supposed to court if you think you might want to get married at the end of it."  
  
"I know," Francis says without a hint of hesitation.  
  
"Fucking hell," Alasdair breathes, and for a moment he can't think of anything of any actual use to say, because it all seems very unreal; the sort of thing that doesn't happen outside the pages of the far-fetched romance novels Dylan reads. "You really want that?"  
  
"I think I could," Francis says. "But then that's what courtship's intended for, isn't it? I'll have a year to decide the answer to that question, and you'll have a year to find out what that 'something more' of yours might be. We don't have to make any decisions before then. And _I_ promise _you_ that you will set the pace in this, and I will only follow where you first lead."  
  
"Right, let's say everything did happen to work out between us," Alasdair says; haltingly, because right now he can't even begin to conceive of such a thing, "would you even be _allowed_ to marry me?"  
  
"I'm a governor, Aly," Francis says. "The only people with enough authority to dictate my partner in marriage are my uncle and my father. The Emperor does not care to involve himself in other people's personal affairs in that way, and my father wrote me off as a marriage prospect long ago." He smiles tremulously. "Besides, if M. Jansen is captured, it might well become a moot point, anyway."  
  
Alasdair can't bring himself to think of that right now, as he still isn't certain how he feels about the prospect of that occurring, either way. It's a worry best left for the future, because it's just too big, too nebulous for here, in this moment; in this quiet room with Francis so close with so much hope in his eyes.  
  
As for everything else, he can admit that he's _intrigued_. He trusts that Francis is speaking the truth, and will give him the time and the space to discover whether _intrigued_ really can become _interested_.  
  
"Okay, then," he says. "Yes, I would like to start courting you."  
  
Francis smile broadens into a grin wide enough that his dimples make a reappearance. "May I kiss you again?" he asks, stepping yet closer. "I believe it's customary at this juncture."  
  
"I guess so," Alasdair says. "Go ahead."  
  
"Ah, you're always such a sweet talker!" Francis laughs. "It's one of the things I like best about you."  
  
This kiss is as brief and chaste as the last, but it's just as warm, too, and Alasdair's just as aware of the sound of Francis' breathing, and how the air he exhales fans, soft and heated, across his face.  
  
It's hardly fire racing through his veins, as he's read it described in countless books, but it _is_ something more. Something different. Something he thinks he can work with.  
  
After Francis breaks the kiss, he clasps Alasdair's shoulders and holds him at arm's length, then looks him very slowly up and down. "Now we're courting, you have absolutely no excuse not to accompany me to soirees and balls. In fact, I insist on it." His eyes narrow speculatively. "And, as I understand it, clothing is traditionally one of the first courting gifts."  
  
"Francis," Alasdair says, but Francis pays no heed to the warning growl in his voice.  
  
"It would be something very tasteful. And definitely not another kilt."  
  
He continues to expand on the subject at great length, and Alasdair tries to pay attention at first, but he gets lost somewhere amongst all the different cuts, materials, and colours. Eventually, he tunes out the words for the most part, and just concentrates on the cadences of Francis' voice. He sounds delighted with his plans, and his eyes are shining clear and bright once more.  
  
He's welling so much contentment that it's impossible for Alasdair to feel any differently himself.  
  
And there is much to be contented about, notwithstanding the uncertainty that still remains over M. Jansen's whereabouts. They did find their man, even if they couldn't catch him, which he hopes will be of some comfort to Mrs Spenser, and M. Martinez's family. Francis and Cassius are safe, at least for the time being. He's _courting_ , apparently.  
  
Everything's settled, all the questions have been answered. Except - Alasdair realises when his eyes happen to settle on the vase full of Gallian roses that's still set at Francis' bedside - perhaps one.  
  
"I never did find out how M. Martinez happened to be carrying a Gallian rose on him when he died," he says, cutting through Francis' excited babbling about the new fashions for short boots. "Any ideas?"  
  
Francis smile fades away, and he nods. "It's a short, sad tale, I'm afraid. Madeline talked to him at the party I held the night before he was killed, and they were very much taken with each other. She told me that she gave him that rose as a memento, and, I think, as a promise of other such nights to come. I haven't yet had the heart to tell her that he thought of it so highly that he had chosen to take it into exile with him."  
  
"Aye, it is sad, and for the both of them, but I was so sure that rose would prove vital to the entire case at the start of it." Alasdair shakes his head. "Turns out it wasn't really that important, after all."  
  
"Of course it was, _mon cher_ ," Francis says. "Without it, we might never have met."

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And it's done! At times, I doubted I'd manage that...
> 
> Many thanks to everyone who's read, kudosed, or commented on this along the way here!
> 
> Special thanks, too, to Hitsu and Nekoian, for all the wonderful feedback, encouragement and inspiration <3
> 
> I hope, in the end, this is somewhere near as satisfying to read as it was for me to write.
> 
> There is a companion fic to this one [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3493793) and sequels [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4095337) and [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/6647440), and other stories set in this universe [here](http://archiveofourown.org/series/391096).
> 
> Thanks again to everyone for reading! Will have to give my writing muscles a rest for a little while, but will reply to all of the lovely comments I've received recently soon!


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